Chewing on Diamonds
by Don'tKillKenny
Summary: Six years after the Mitakihara disaster, Sayaka has become an undercover cop at Kazamino's upscale strip club. However, what she doesn't know is that the girl training her is not only superhuman, but may be one of the criminals she's there to take down. Continuation of Oriko Magica timeline, KyoSaya, drugs, gore, crime, yuri, dubcon, hinted abuse, PTSD, pedophilia in a flashback.
1. Chapter 1

**Chewing on Diamonds**

Sayaka missed Mitakihara sometimes. It had been a bustling metropolis with sweets stores and restaurants that served foods of every nationality. The theatres had all kinds of entertainment, from action-packed blockbusters to beautifully tragic operas. There had always been things to do.

But those were only bonuses. What she really missed were the people. Her classmates, teachers (even if they were a bit too open about their personal lives), family, but most of all her friends. She had such wonderful friends. Kyousuke, the budding child musical prodigy. He had so much promise before his accident. But even afterwards, the mix of contentment and pain in his eyes when he listened to the classical CDs she brought him showed how deep his passion ran. Sayaka always wished she had that kind of passion for something she was talented at.

Then there was the beautiful Hitomi. She was the epitome of elegance and young beauty, which earned her tons of love letters, many of which were hilariously poorly written. Nevertheless, Sayaka always wished she got that kind of admiration. Mind you, no one would really call Sayaka beautiful or elegant. They might call her cute and tomboyish, which is fine and good but generally not the best for attracting love letters from silly teenage boys.

There was also the mysterious new transfer student, Homura Akemi. Sayaka had not known her for very long, but she was a friend of hers nonetheless. This girl seemed to follow Madoka around like a lovesick puppy, but when you're in a new place and don't know anyone it's natural to cling onto someone who is such an open and genuinely kind person. Sayaka always wondered what Homura was thinking, and what she could have learned had they become closer. She was an odd one…especially that cosplay outfit she appeared to wearing with the upper-year blonde, strange redhead and little green-haired girl the last time they saw each other…on _that _day.

And finally, her closest friend of all; Madoka. Sayaka's breath, even six years later still caught every time she thought of her. Madoka was the sweetest and most caring person she had ever met. Madoka had this way of making Sayaka feel like she was incredible in every way; like she could do anything she put her mind to; like she could be, and was a true hero and protector of justice. As cheesy as it was, Madoka was the wind beneath her wings and kept her going.

But things always happen that change people's plans. Kyousuke was going to be the world's next greatest composer since Hans Zimmer, but even after six years he can't move his fingers an inch. Hitomi was going to become an upper-class socialite that any successful businessman would be proud to call his wife, but ever since that awful day six years ago she's still terrified of being arovund too many people. Homura was going to become more confident and open up to people, but she literally disappeared off the face of the earth. And Madoka…Madoka was going to be a psychologist or a veterinarian; someone who could heal and help.

But that's pretty fucking hard to do when you're dead.

And it's then, when Sayaka remembers that strange, very strange, dreadful day where monsters attacked her school killing her teachers and classmates; when Sayaka remembers how she proudly declared that she would go upstairs with Madoka and help save the transfer student; when that piece of wood or something burst through the wall and into Madoka's chest; when the transfer student was suddenly gone.

Sayaka also remembered what came after. The police, asking why some students were covered in blood and the other half were nowhere to be found. Explaining to the Kaname family how their daughter had died, but she could not bring back a body to prove anything. How in a fit of the absolute worst luck, a horrible natural disaster struck a week later, destroying Mitakihara and wiping out almost a quarter of its two million person population in a single night. How her family made her take pills for years. How Sayaka took matters into her own hands and…self-medicated at times.

Some families moved back after the city was rebuilt, but many stayed where they had relocated. Most families went to Kazamino, simply because it was close. Parts of the northeastern part of Kazamino had been damaged too, but it was nothing compared to its western neighbour. Other survivors went to larger cities like Tokyo and Kyoto. Others simply left the country. Hitomi, Kyousuke, and Sayaka's own families were among the many that flooded into Kazamino and made the city of 800,000 boom to slightly less than 1.3 million.

The only bit of condolence from the disaster was that entire families were wiped out a time. Sayaka's mother lost her sister's family, but at least she died with her husband and children. None of them were left alone without their immediate family.

At least the Kaname family died, and didn't have to live on with the loss of their precious daughter. Sayaka had a hard enough time doing that, and she was only her best friend.

Yes, when Sayaka thinks enough about it she misses Mitakihara; but there is no way in hell she would ever go back.

* * *

Kyoko missed Mitakihara sometimes. It had had so many witches, and _so _many grief seeds. After only two weeks of hunting, she had enough grief seeds to last her two months! Also, Mitakihara's arcade was way better than Kazamino's.

The biggest advantage to Mitakihara was that it wasn't Kazamino. Kazamino had too many bad memories; memories of starvation and memories of _them_. Kyoko liked being in a new city, so she never had to pass by a park and think of the time she and Momo played there, or go into a restaurant and be reminded of the one time her family had enough money to eat there for her birthday.

Before she left for Mitakihara, Kyoko had nothing to live for. She knew it. She could tell herself over and over again how she had herself, and that was more than enough but even she knew those were just hollow thoughts she used to console herself. Mitakihara gave her something, _someone _to live for.

The only reason she hadn't turned into a witch after her family's death was because she still had Mami, who was basically her big sister. So she still had some family. But then, when she found that poor little green-haired girl sitting in a pool of her abusive parents' blood in shock, she got a little sister who actually _needed _her.

Kyoko was positive that without Yuma, she would have given up a long time ago. Even if having Yuma made her current situation a bit…less than ideal, it sure beat being alone.

Kyoko was fucked up and she knew that. She never got past an eighth grade education because school would just get in the way of hunting witches. She was great at hunting, and it gave her everything she needed to survive with a bit (ok, a lot) of theft on the side. But Yuma deserved better; Yuma hadn't done anything to deserve her family leaving her behind, or her family abusing her in the first place. Yuma had done nothing wrong but was given a shit hand in life. Kyoko had been kind of ok, starvation aside and threw everything away on her own. Kyoko deserved everything that happened to her, but Yuma didn't.

Yuma deserved to go to school and live a somewhat normal life. The girl had been a dumbass when she was seven and became a magical girl, but if there were two of them, maybe at least one could live a normal, happy life right? Yeah, that was definitely possible.

So Kyoko had decided that Yuma should keep going to school. What she hadn't realized though was that to be enrolled in school, you needed a permanent address. To have a permanent address, you needed money to pay rent. To get money, you needed a job. And Kyoko still needed to have enough time to hunt witches, so it had to be a good-paying job that would give her more than enough money for only three or so days of work per week and didn't need any education to do it. She considered staying at the church, but she wasn't sure if that would count, or if it was even legal.

And that was how she started working at Tomi's Gentleman's Club, the shadiest yet most upscale strip joint in Kazamino. Normally, it takes at least two years of experience at a lower class joint to get a job, but Kyoko could prove pretty fast that she was more talented on a pole than any of their current staff. There are professional advantages to fighting dangerous creatures with a giant spear every night.

There are certain…requirements to work at Tomi's. For one, you had to be very, very sexual. That was a given, but just moving your hips a few times wasn't good enough. You had to sell an illusion to these men that they were powerful, handsome, and desirable; you had to make them believe that you, a beautiful young woman genuinely _wanted _them.

There were many ways to do this. Kyoko sold the wild, untameable amazon-type. She tended to attract weak men who wanted someone to take the lead, or leaders who wanted to break her in. If she wasn't a magical girl who could whoop their asses in five seconds flat, she might have been concerned about the latter. However, Tomi's has only one very strict rule for customers, and plenty of intimidating bouncers to enforce it; the girls can touch you if you pay for it, but you _never _touch the girls. So seeing wealthy business men with their hands at their sides, or draped on the backrest of a couch while scantily clad young women gave them lap dances was the norm.

The second rule, and arguably more important rule was that what happened in the club stayed in the club. They attracted all sorts of high-profile clientele, and many of them were not exactly the most reputable of characters. Kazamino had lots of organized crime, particularly drugs and loansharking since the influx of devastated refugees from Mitakihara six years ago; thousands were left with no homes, money, or friends. In short, they were the perfect targets.

And these crime lords loved to have their business meetings at Tomi's. So Kyoko and her coworkers knew about a lot of pretty fucked up and really illegal things in Kazamino. And they would never tell a soul.

From her work over the years, she built certain…connections you could call them. And from those connections, she managed to start a little entrepreneurial venture of her own. She was occasionally employed as something of an independent contractor, doing odd jobs for people of all sorts of backgrounds. She'd stolen back incriminating photos from a paparazzo. She found runaways who owed money to loan sharks. She delivered "messages". These jobs were by far her favourite and paid the most for her time, but were few and far between. However, that also made it harder for any authorities to catch her.

She was an outlaw in every respect. She still stole most of the groceries (what? She was good at it, and it was a lot cheaper. She's supporting a poor, starving girl so it's ok). She used her fake ID, Sakura Misaki, inspired by her late mother on all sorts of official documents like her rent contract before she turned 18. And she turned to prostitution once, _only _once, and never wanted to do that again. But if she did the illegal acts, Yuma wouldn't have to.

She had basic standards, at least. She would never kill (too messy). She would never sell drugs (too time consuming and borderline evil). She would never go into trafficking (too evil). She wasn't an angel in any way and she knew that, but she wouldn't call herself the devil either, though her late father might disagree with that.

Sometimes, she made the mistake of wondering what he would think of her now; daughter of a clergyman, who sold her soul to the devil and used her powers to fool the innocent, serve evil and be the best damn stripper in Kazamino. If she really mattered to him, he wouldn't have gone off the rail and killed himself and their whole family. It took a few years, but she finally managed to move from self-loathing to just loathing.

All in all though…things were pretty good. She had a family. She had Yuma. And she was giving Yuma a good life. Yuma did well in school and even got to take part in the art club after school on Tuesdays, which was perfect because it was a surprisingly good night to work the pole. Yuma was praised by her teachers and peers alike her for "spectacular, interpretive paintings of the darknesses of mankind"; she was just painting witches she'd fought, or the witches she thought they'd become. It was how she coped, and it worked well for her. Yuma got to be a (moderately) regular kid. The police and social workers liked to stop by for surprise visits sometimes when Yuma showed up to school with bruises, which was a pain in the ass (and more terrifying than Kyoko would ever admit, since it was always a bit of a guessing game to figure out what they were showing up for).

Kyoko missed Mitakihara sometimes…but now that she had someone to live for in Kazamino, it really wasn't so bad anymore.

* * *

"Miki, loosen up! Roll your body, roll it!" The personal coach, Mei shouted. Sayaka had never dreamed that part of her job as a police officer, and true defender of justice, would be learning how to pole dance. But the other officer who was supposed to do this, a young beautiful officer with a few more years experience got knocked up and the department's connection would never be able to get a pregnant woman into Tomi's.

"Good, practice climbing with the left leg now. You rely on your right too much." Fuck, Sayaka hated climbing with the left. She fit the pole between the outside of her left foot and inside her left knee, squeezed, and hoisted herself up. She climbed up the pole from floor to ceiling in fifteen seconds, making sure she looked sexy the entire way up.

"Great, now slide down slowly and land in jazz splits." She did it no problem.

"Show me your ground work." Sayaka dutifully rolled onto her back, felt up her sides while doing slow, sensual bicycle motion with her legs, then rolled onto all fours and moved her bum in circles.

"Get up doing Madonna." Sayaka rolled back onto her feet, opening and closing her legs so they almost resembled a butterfly preparing to fly and body rolled up.

"Get inverted and show me scorpion." She went upside down and used only her leg and stomach skin to hold her on the pole.

"Slide down and show me your hand stands." She slid down the pole and then showed how she could do the splits and move her legs in all sorts of beautiful ways while upside down. And the next forty five minutes went on like this, with the moves become more challenging, faster, and flowing together. By the end of it, Sayaka was panting but doing her best to not let it show. Her long blond wig kept falling in her face throughout the workout, which still bugged her but at least she was used to it. And this way, hopefully, no one she was trying to get information on from the club could recognize her outside of it. Plus, she totally rocked the Lady Gaga "Poker Face" look, if she did say so herself.

"So, what do you think Mei? Is she ready?" Sayaka's supervisor, Ryo asked. She and two other younger officers had been in training for the last six months, but they narrowed it down when they decided she would be best to go undercover. She was thrilled that by the age of 19, she was already going undercover! She wasn't convinced that she would be the ideal candidate to go undercover, but she had gotten pretty good at keeping secrets and pretending over the past few years. She also knew who to look out, what street names to listen for, and where to go. Being a former junkie (yes, former, she doesn't really do it anymore, seriously!) had its perks, but she would never let anyone else know that's how she knew these things.

A silence hung in the air. She had been training for fifteen hours a week on top of her normal parking cop duties. She wanted to get out of that. She wanted something more exciting. She wanted to take down bad guys who took advantage of people like her and her friends _now_.

"Yes. She's ready. Get a photographer and call Tomi." Sayaka wondered what they needed a photographer for.

* * *

"Sakura, loosen up! It won't be that bad. I've heard this one's exceptionally talented from a very good friend of mine." Tomi tried fruitlessly to convince Kyoko that taking on a new "little buddy" in the club could be fun. Kyoko hated training new girls, especially ones who had never worked in clubs before. They had no idea what their stage persona would be, and they copied her exactly because they could see that she was good. They usually didn't get many of her tips, but it was enough that she couldn't take Yuma out for ice cream after a good (or bad) witch hunt.

"You know what happens every. Single. Fucking. Time. Give her to someone else. I don't want some stupid newbie trying to copy my act."

"For god's sakes, look at her photos! She could never pull off the bad girl, and even she must know that. She looks way too sweet for that." It was true. Every applicant had to submit nude photos so they could see exactly what the club would be getting. This girl had long, straight blonde hair, big green eyes, and very pale skin; she looked like a very uncomfortable doll due to her nervous facial expression. She would definitely be suited to an angel personality. Kyoko didn't know why, but for some reason she didn't like her eyes or her hair. They almost didn't look right to her.

"You're the best dancer we have, Sakura and one of the most familiar with our clients. I know you can show her the ropes. I'm making sure that this girl couldn't steal your style, even if she tried." He further tried to convince. Kyoko wasn't buying any of it.

"I'll give you an hourly wage of $50 on top of your tips. And won't charge you for being late ever again."

"Ok deal."

* * *

"So I won't see you after school anymore?" Kyousuke asked sadly. It had become tradition that after his classes on Thursdays, he would roll beside Sayaka on her weekly shifts at the university. Parking duty wasn't all that exciting, so it was pretty easy for him to come along without anyone getting overly upset about it.

"Yeah, I've gotten a new assignment so I'm off parking duty. I'm sorry I can't give you any more details than that." She really wanted to tell them all about it; what she was excited about, what she was worried about. The three of them had become inseparable after the disaster, and it felt strange to keep secrets from them. Well, there had been four of them but Sayaka preferred not to think about _him_.

"You're actually going undercover. That's so exciting Sayaka-chan! I'm so proud of you! This is exactly what you wanted, isn't it?" Hitomi asked pleasantly.

"Well, yes and no. Again, I can't go into too many details. But this gets me closer to what I'm going for. How are your classes going? Do you have exams coming up?"

"Yes. I hate exam season. They let me take all of my classes from home, but then they make me go to such a crowded area to be tested. I'm always so worried I'll fail from claustrophobia." Hitomi never even came close to failing; she's way too smart for that. But it's never easy for her to leave her apartment, which is why they were there now. After the incident at Mitakihara Middle School, Hitomi developed major social anxiety which evolved into something like agoraphobia, something that worries Sayaka and shames her aristocratic family daily. She's probably the only sociology major Sayaka had ever heard of who is afraid of society.

"I have a lot to study for, but most of my courses are very interesting so I'll be happy to review them. Sexuality is terrible though." Kyousuke frowned. He had to take at least three science courses for his degree, so he tried choosing ones that sounded easy. He had been right about botany being a bird course, but science of human sexuality has been hilariously difficult ("Girls have three holes?"). It was conversations like these that made Sayaka glad she didn't bother trying with university and went with the police academy instead. It's not like university would have even been an option for her with her grades, but that was beside the point.

After another hour of joking and complaining about work, family, and professors, it was getting fairly late.

"Are you sure you don't want to stay and watch a movie with us Sayaka-chan? I have popcorn!" Hitomi tempted.

"Haha, no, I wouldn't want to be a third wheel on your date! You lovebirds have fun. Besides, I have a long day tomorrow and need to get up early."

"Fair enough. Good luck on your new assignment Sayaka. I think you will be great." Kyousuke smiled. Whenever she saw that smile, she remembered why she had been so in love with him all those years ago. But he and Hitomi fit together so perfectly and had been dating for a few years now. Besides, Sayaka couldn't deny that Hitomi needed Kyousuke much more than she did, and Kyousuke loved the feeling of being needed by somebody. Their relationship was a bit dysfunctional in ways and Sayaka still felt lonely sometimes, but this was better for everyone.

"Thanks guys. I really needed the pep talk. Good night!" And as she turned to leave, she heard the familiar click of Hitomi's apartment door behind her.

* * *

"So I won't see you after school anymore?" Yuma asked curiously. She didn't care much at this point, since she knew she would always see Kyoko eventually…usually.

"Not for the next few weeks, no. I need to train this new bitch. And it looks like I might be getting another contract soon, if what I hear from around the club is true." A politician had been being blackmailed by an anonymous culprit recently, and one or her reputable-for-being-unreputable friends had let her know that he'd passed on her business name.

"Think she's going to try to steal your tips like the last one did?"

"I'd like to see her try." Kyoko smiled mischievously, showing her characteristic fang. Yuma smiled.

"Well, it'll be nice being able to stay in the art room more days after school. And maybe I can get some more studying done for my exams. Are you sure you'll be ok to hunt witches after all of that?"

"I'll make it work. I've fought and won under worse conditions."

"You've also fought and lost under better conditions." Yuma joked. "Luckily, you had the young, prodigal me to come and save you! Do you like having arms and legs, Onii-chan?"

"Yeah, yeah, stop being so full of yourself you little punk." Kyoko said while ruffling Yuma's hair.

"Stop messing up my hair! You know how much time it takes for me to get it to even look presentable. Just because you like having crazy hair, doesn't mean I do too."

"Well, I think this matches your magical girl outfit better, Miss Poofy Pants."

"I was seven when I picked my outfit, so shut up!"

"Is that any way to speak to your elders?" Kyoko laughed as she pounced on Yuma to tickle her.

"No! No! Stop! You're gonna make me pee!" Yuma screamed angrily between laughs.

When they finally settled down (only after Kyoko became legitimately concerned that Yuma might make a mess on the carpet), Kyoko made them a quick dinner of noodle stir fry.

"Are you done your homework?"

"Finished it over lunch and before you came to pick me up, like always."

"How's your soul gem looking?"

Yuma pulled hers out, a deep forest green. It was usually a bright lime green.

"It could definitely be cleared up a bit. How's yours?"

"Pretty much the same." Kyoko had checked earlier and saw that her bright blood red was a deep crimson.

"We have two grief seeds left for the two of us, which can keep us going for a bit but they won't last and I think we'll both be busy over the next few weeks. You feel up for hunting a bit tonight? I bet those familiars from two weeks ago must be witches by now." Yuma speculated.

"I bet you're right, kiddo. Make sure you have everything packed up for school tomorrow and we can head out."

"Don't call me kiddo. I'm thirteen years old. Almost as old as you when we first met!"

"And I was a kiddo until I was twenty, so you're still a kiddo."

"You're twenty now."

"Exactly, so I'm not a kiddo anymore."

"What'll happen when I turn twenty then? Will you finally acknowledge that I'm an adult?"

"By that point, I'll have only stopped being a kiddo when I turned twenty-five."

"You're the worst, Kyo!"

* * *

"No!" Sayaka woke up with a start with tears in her eyes. She looked around frantically, recognizing her bed in her one-bedroom apartment and the familiar sound of her heart pounded in her ears. It had been the Madoka nightmare again.

_"Homura-chan is up there! I need to go save her!" Madoka shouted terrified. The strange, root-like looking monsters were in the corner, devouring the corpse of a student they could no longer recognize. Sayaka had never even heard of anything like them on any of the weird nature documentaries her mother loved to watch. These things ate people, swelled up, and exploded leaving nothing behind. There was no trace of human bodies anywhere. _

_ "Homura-chan is our friend too, so we all need to go save her together!" Sayaka shouted back, holding up her makeshift bat made of a diamond rope she and Hitomi climbed up. She was the only one with a weapon and had fended off a few of the strange monsters already. Madoka would be eaten on her own without Sayaka and her bat. "We can take on anything!" Sayaka cheered._

_ Madoka nodded and turned to run while Hitomi reluctantly followed. She didn't want to be alone in this odd checkered pandemonium. It didn't take them long before they heard what sounded like a battle and maniacal laughter. _

_ "They must be in there." Madoka said, with a determination in her yes that Sayaka had never seen before. Sayaka nodded and they approached the door, Madoka slightly ahead of her. _

_ Without warning, there was a loud crash and a wall exploded. Sayaka jumped back, shielding her eyes and Hitomi from the debris. After the dust settled, Sayaka pulled her arm away from her face, noticing that it was covered in blood. But she didn't feel hurt. She wasn't injured. Where was the blood from? Oh my god, where is the blood coming from? She barely heard the sound of herself screaming over the ringing in her ears._

_ She noticed just inches in front of her, Madoka lying on the ground, eyes wide and terrified but unseeing, and a large piece of wood protruding from her open chest, blood and innards leaking out. _

_ "Madoka!" Sayaka screamed, hoping, praying that her friend was ok, was not dead, was just minorly hurt and would be ok and back to her normal, cheerful self tomorrow. She was ok. She had to be ok, right? That wasn't her blood. Those weren't her intestines. _

_ Faintly, in the back of her mind, she could recognize Homura in the corner of her eye falling to her knees with a look of pure disbelief, reaching what looked like a large watch on her wrist and suddenly disappearing, never to be seen again. _

After vomiting in the bathroom, Sayaka got up from her knees and looked at her reflection. She looked awful, much paler than normal. Whenever she was stressed about anything, she had the nightmare which just made things worse. She slid the bathroom mirror to the side to find her pills behind it and popped an anti-anxiety pill in her mouth, washing it down with a swig of the vodka she hid with the cleaning products under the sink. It calmed her down, and the combination sometimes made her see beautiful colours.

"I can't be thinking like this. Tomorrow, I need to be on my A-game." Sayaka said to herself while taking deep breaths. She would go to the station at 8:00 to get instructions for her assignment and to look at the prepared profiles of criminals the force knew frequented the club. She had memorized theirs faces, what groups they were associated with, and their criminal records. But she had to look at them again, just to be sure.

At noon, she would go to Tomi's for the first time for an interview. It sounded like it was more of a formality, but she still had to impress. Then she would have to show a dance, one of the dozens Mei had choreographed for her on the pole. She had to be perfect.

"I can do this. I can do this. I'll just go back to bed, and I will be able to do this." As she walked back into the bedroom, she noticed the lights on her alarm clock blaring "3:42". There wasn't much time left, but it was still better than nothing.

"What happened then never happened again. It was a one-off event and will never happen again. I am safe, my friends are safe, and this will never happen again. If anything like this ever happens again, I'll know what to do to keep them safe. We'll be safe. We are safe."

* * *

"No!" Kyoko woke up with a start with tears in her eyes. She looked around frantically, recognizing her bed in her one-bedroom apartment and the familiar sound of her heart pounded in her ears. It had been the Mami nightmare again.

"_Mami, this witch is way too big, we can't fight it!" Kyoko yelled to the buxom blonde standing on another damaged building. She was panting hard, clutching her arm which had most likely been broken. _

"_We can't leave it, Sakura-san. Look at it! It will destroy everything and kill thousands of people!" She yelled back. Kyoko couldn't help but remember mirthlessly how only a year ago, she and Mami were convinced they could defeat a Walpurgisnacht together. Now, with the two of them and a magical girl whose entire wish was based on helping Kyoko against it, they had no chance. _

"_It's going to kill us! We're going to die! We need to pull back and run! We can still get out of here alive if we leave now!" Kyoko jumped over to the building Mami was standing on. _

"_Please Mami. We just started talking again. We don't have a shot in hell of beating it, or even holding it off long enough for more people to evacuate. We've done all that we can. Please. I…I don't want to lose you again…I don't want to lose my family again…" Kyoko held Mami's uninjured hand. She had never been this open about her feelings before. She hated it. She liked being closed off. It was safer._

_Mami looked at her with tears in her eyes. She squeezed Kyoko's hand for a moment before letting it go. _

"_I'm glad we've been talking again too…Kyoko. I've missed you much more than you realize. But I'm sorry, I can't leave this witch to destroy the city. You can leave if you have to though. I won't hold it against you." Mami smiled kindly with that sad look in her eyes. Kyoko hated that face, but it seemed so often that that was only facial expression she really had. _

"_Mami…" _

"_KYOKO ONII-CHAN!" Yuma screamed from another building. She was terrified. She had only been a magical girl for ten days, she was seven years old, and she was up against a mega witch. _

"_KYOKO ONII-CHAN, YUMA IS SCARED!" She screamed. She had tears and snot streaming down her face. She had never been this scared before, not even when that witch ripped her parents apart. _

_It was like slow motion for Kyoko, watching the monstrous witch slowly rotate upside down beneath what looked like a large gear, laughing its chillingly human laugh. The face with that overly large smile finally turned to face Yuma and stopped. It just stood still, laughing. Kyoko knew what was going to happen. _

"_YUMA!" She screamed as she darted to the next building, grabbing her just in time to avoid another building being flung at the exact spot she had been standing just moments before. They escaped, but Kyoko's right arm was shattered. _

"_Kyoko onii-chan! Yuma's sorry, Yuma was scared! Please don't leave Yuma, she's sorry!" She cried. Kyoko just looked at her, with no expression just thinking 'she's safe. She's safe. Thank God she's safe'. _

_Kyoko turned back to Mami, who had prepared another Tiro Finale, firing it at the witch's face. She hit it dead on, but it did nothing but make the witch laugh louder. Mami started to cry and looked at Kyoko with a pleading expression. _

_Kyoko looked down, seeing the little green-haired girl who had come into her life just twelve days ago. It felt like it was the first time God had truly blessed her in a long time. Her blue eyes were teary but focused, brows furrowed in concentration as she worked on knitting together the bones of Kyoko's arms. She was so inexperienced, so young; she didn't stand a chance, even with Kyoko protecting her. Kyoko looked to Mami again. A single, silent tear fell from her eye. _

"_I'm sorry…" she said in a quiet voice to Mami. She knew she couldn't hear her, but she could see from reading her lips what she'd said. Mami cried harder, but nodded and turned back to the witch. She prepared another set of muskets. Kyoko had her answer, and Mami had hers. _

_Kyoko grabbed Yuma, surprising her younger protectee and ran. She ran as fast as she could from the witch with Yuma slung over her good shoulder. She didn't look back, not even when she heard a series of crashing buildings from right around where Mami was standing. She just kept running. _

"It's fine. You're safe. You're here. Nothing's going to hurt you. You're not alone. You're ok." Yuma held her, rocking back and forth gently.

"Shh, you're ok. I'm here. I've got you. You're safe." Yuma chanted gently, a mantra they had both repeated to each other many nights before. The life of a magical girl was never easy, even though it had brought them so close over the years. They both lost families from magic and gained new, arguably better ones.

After a few minutes, Kyoko calmed down. She realized she couldn't remember when Yuma stopped talking in third person.

"Thanks…sorry about that." She said pulling away, wiping the tears from her eyes. She hated it when Yuma had to comfort her. It should always be the other way around. The kid was twelve.

"It's ok onii-chan…it happens to both of us. Which one was it this time?"

"The Mami dream." Kyoko said after a moment. Yuma just nodded, familiar with that one herself even though her nightmare generally focused on the witch itself and not the blond-haired girl she didn't get the chance to know. But Kyoko had told her the whole story and knew how close they had been. She also knew that she owed everything to Mami, because without her, her big sister who saved and gave her a new life never would have survived the murder-suicide of her family. Yuma hugged her again.

"Think you can go back to sleep, or should we just get up? We might be able to hunt another witch or two before school starts." Kyoko contemplated the offer. Fighting might help her get her mind off of this, but she was still tired from their fights last night. They got three grief seeds, an especially good night.

"No, we're fine for grief seeds and I don't think my head would be in the fight. I think we're more likely to just end up getting hurt. Thanks though. Let's go back to sleep."

They lay back down, still holding onto each other. It always hurt, thinking that in order for her to gain one family member, she had to lose another. But she still thanked God every night that she had Yuma.

She fell asleep to the familiar sound of Yuma breathing next to her in a disturbed, dream-filled sleep.

* * *

This was going to be a bad day and Sayaka knew it. When she got to the station that morning, Ryo saw her pouring over the information and decided that she was probably just psyching herself out more by reading it "for what has to be at least the eightieth time" he said (_Magumi Akihiro, Drug Dealer; Hiroshi Hideki, Loan Shark; Atahiko Osamu, Trafficker; Dresden Ophelia, Various_). Then, her appointment got put off until 2:00 pm so she had too much time to just hang out at the office, so she got put on park duty until noon.

She walked around a park near Kazamino High. It was known for having quite a few drug dealers (some of whom she remembered personally, and locked away personally), but they weren't stupid enough to be out and about this early in the day. So most likely, it was just going to be her walking around the park for a few hours. But at least it was a nice park, drug dealers aside.

She fed a few ducks for fun (oh, if only the taxpayers could see what their money was going towards). She almost got one to eat out of her hand, which was kind of cool.

She came up to some kids who were playing on skateboards. She asked if they were supposed to be in school, but they were on spare. It was surprising that they weren't studying, but she wasn't one to judge. There was a reason she never went to university, after all.

She did a few tricks with them and they put her photo on Instagram tagged as #coolestcopever which she was happy to accept. She wasn't undercover yet, and might as well enjoy her easy day until she had to start.

She checked her watch and saw that it was 11:30. _Only twenty minutes before I should start heading back…_she thought with some dread.

She was walking by a sweets vendor when she couldn't help but notice a particularly striking young woman. She looked to be around her age, with long, wild red hair. She appeared to be in a rush.

_I wish my hair looked like that_ Sayaka thought to herself absentmindedly. She lazily watched her for a bit, admiring her. _She really is gorgeous. _

She noticed her subtly take one of the fried snacks. _Oh shit, you've done it now! _ Sayaka thought excitedly.

"Excuse me, ma'am." She said boldly. She had to uphold that hand of the law after all.

The red-head looked at her with a blank expression, but she could sense something behind those crimson eyes. It wasn't fear, more like annoyance or hatred.

"Yes officer?" She asked, innocently.

"I noticed you took that pastry, but you didn't pay for it. Could you give the man the 400 yen for that?" _For god's sakes, it's only 400 yen woman. You don't look like your homeless or anything. _

"I'm not sure what you're talking about. I paid for it." _Oh hell, she did? I look like an ass now. _

"No she didn't." The vendor said saucily. _Phew! _

"Ma'am, please pay for the pastry or else I'll have to write you a ticket."

"For a 400 fucking yen pastry?! Come ON, don't you have anything better to do with your time?!" _Not yet, no. But this is still important! _

"Any theft, no matter how small, is theft. Please pay for the pastry or return it, or else I'll have to give you a ticket ma'am."

"For fuck's sakes, it's 400 god damn yen!" _Petty criminal and a filthy mouth…_

"Exactly, so please pay it ma'am."

There was a moment of tense silence where Sayaka and the woman just looked at each other.

"Do you take credit or debit?" The red-haired woman asked impatiently.

"Do you see a bank machine?" The vendor replied with the same spunky tone as before.

"Officer, I just spent all my money on my little sister's school supplies. Please understand, our parents died a few years ago and I've been doing my best to make ends meet. It was stupid of me to do this. I just really miss having any sort of luxury, I do everything for my sister. But I understand that this was wrong of me to do…" _That sounds like a load of bull to me. _

"I smell BS!" The vendor snapped.

"I'm very sorry for your loss, but I can't forgive any theft that I saw. I'll have to write you a ticket ma'am." _Even I feel like this is getting ridiculous._

"Oh come on, I said I was sorry! I'm sorry park guy!" She apologized hurriedly, clearly trying to get out of the situation.

"Too bad, I want my money."

"I told you I don't have any! If you want, I can go to the ATM and bring some back in ten minutes."

"Like you'll do that! I want money now!"

"Well I don't have any!"

"Then give me back my pastry!"

"Fine! Here!" She said as she took a big bite and handed it back. _Why would you do that?! Why?! _

"Officer! Do something about this!" _. _

"Ma'am, could I see your ID please?"

"Why do you need it?!"

"I need to write you a ticket ma'am."

"Well what if I just don't give it to you?" She looked like she felt like she had just won the match. _Are you for real, woman? _

"Then I'll have to arrest you for theft and refusal to obey an officer. Please show me your ID." The red-head's face fell at that, as she reluctantly pulled out her wallet, throwing it unnecessarily harshly to Sayaka.

Sayaka looked through the wallet, but noticed something odd. _Oh yeah, jackpot!_

"Why do you have two driver's licenses with your photo but different names ma'am?" The red head's face paled and paused for a moment.

"Um…well…remember when I told you how my parents had died? Well, they died before I turned 18. I had to get a job to support me and my sister, or else we'd have to go to a foster home and I just didn't think we'd do well there. And well…the place I needed to work to be able to support us needed me to be at least 18 so I got a fake ID…" _I don't know why, but I can tell she's telling the truth. _

"When did your parents die?"

"Six years ago. In the Mitakihara disaster." _Oh my god…_

"Ah…I see. Well, ma'am I can see from your ID with the younger birthdate that you are over 18 years of age now, yes…" Sayaka quickly glanced down at the ID "Sakura Kyoko?"

"Yes, I am now. I don't even use the older ID anymore, really."

"Well Sakura-san, I'm sorry but I'm going to have to confiscate your fraudulent forms of identification. I'll also have to write you a ticket for the theft…" _I feel like shit now. _

"Please officer…" She looked at her badge and saw her name "Miki! You can write me a ticket for the pastry for any amount you want, I'll accept that!"

"I'm glad to hear that but I still need those IDs. Have a nice day Sakura-san." Sayaka nodded and handed her a ticket for 1,000 yen. _If I didn't have that vendor watching me…I don't know. But what if she's lying? It's better this way, I know it is. _

"Excuse me, Officer? Who's going to pay for that pastry?" _Oh yeah…_

"Ah, my apologies sir. Here you are." Sayaka said while paying him.

"Have a nice day sir, ma'am." Sayaka nodded to them and left. She absent-mindedly looked to her watch.

_Shit, I need to get going. _

* * *

This was going to be a bad day and Kyoko knew it. She woke up with a sense of dread, her troubled sleep the night before not helping any. When she glanced to her alarm clock, it was 10:45 am. _Shit! How the fuck did I oversleep by that much? I need to be completely ready in less than 15 minutes to get there and I haven't had a shower in three days!_

She quickly looked beside her, ready to shake Yuma awake and get her to school. But the bed was empty, except for a note:

_Good morning Onii-chan! _

_ I knew that you didn't have anything until noon today, so I figured you deserved a day to sleep in. Don't worry, I'll get ready and to school on time on my own because I can be an adult too! _

_ I completely forgot that I needed to pay the art club for some more painting supplies, so I took 5,000 yen from your wallet. I hope you don't mind. _

_ Hope you have a nice morning Onii-chan! See you tonight! I love you! _

_ -Yuma_

Kyoko grumbled at her little sister's good intentions. _Fuck…I can't get ready in that amount of time. _She picked up her phone and noticed 8 missed calls, all from Tomi. _Super fuck!_

"Good morning Sakura-san, I was wondering if we could move the time for the new girl from noon to 11:00?" –Call from Tomi's new secretary at 8:00 am

"Sakura, where are you? Could we move it from 11:00 to 11:30?" –Call from 8:23 am

"Sakura, we're meeting at noon again." -8:28 am

"Sakura we're meeting at 10:30." -8:45 am

"Sakura, you're not responding, we're meeting at noon again." -9:07 am

"Sakura, call me! Does 12:30 work for you?" -9:35 am

"Sakura, please answer your phone! We're doing noon again." -10:02 am

"I sent the candidate the wrong time this morning. We're meeting at 2:00" -10:14 am _Thank you God! _

Still, she wanted to run a few errands before meeting this new girl. She clearly had to run to the ATM now thanks to a certain someone. First though, she'd call Tomi to confirm the 2:00 time…

After doing that, having a shower, shaving _everything_ and getting the base for her makeup on, she noticed that it was already almost 11:30. _Son of a bitch…_

Running through the shortcut in the park took no time at all. As she did that, she felt that nasty, gnarling grumble from her empty stomach that she was all too familiar with. _Fuck, I forgot to eat. And I'm supposed to be showing the noob pole tricks today too! I can't do that on an empty stomach. _

She quickly noticed a vendor selling pastries who looked distracted by other customers. _Well, back to the good ol' days. _She quickly snatched an unattended one.

"Excuse me, ma'am." A voice said from behind her. Kyoko turned around and saw a young woman who looked no older than herself with a pale face, blue eyes, blue hair, and blue uniform that couldn't be mistaken for anything other than a police officer's uniform. _Shit! Ok, it's fine, you've dealt with worse. Just play it cool._

"Yes officer?" She asked, innocently.

"I noticed you took that pastry, but you didn't pay for it. Could you give the man the 400 yen for that?" _It's only 400 yen woman. Don't you have anything better to do with your time?_

"I'm not sure what you're talking about. I paid for it."Kyoko said, noticing that the vendor's attention had been caught. She made her trade-mark sultry face to the man, hoping to charm him out of making trouble. _Nothing like going for a man's ego. _

"No she didn't." The vendor said saucily. _Fuck, he's gay! Or greedy. Or married. Or..  
_

"Ma'am, please pay for the pastry or else I'll have to write you a ticket." _Damn it Yuma!_

"For a 400 fucking yen pastry?! Come ON, don't you have anything better to do with your time?!"

"Any theft, no matter how small, is theft. Please pay for the pastry or return it, or else I'll have to give you a ticket ma'am." _Oh, well aren't you a saintly protector of justice?_

"For fuck's sakes, it's 400 god damn yen!"

"Exactly, so please pay it ma'am." _Damn, I walked right into that one…_

There was a moment of tense silence where Kyoko and the officer just looked at each other.

"Do you take credit or debit?" Kyoko asked impatiently to the vendor.

"Do you see a bank machine?" The vendor replied with the same tone as before. _I get it, you're mad. Stop being such an asshole. Ok, pull the guilt card. You've got plenty of that to dish out Kyoko. _

"Officer, I just spent all my money on my little sister's school supplies. Please understand, our parents died a few years ago and I've been doing my best to make ends meet. It was stupid of me to do this. I just really miss having any sort of luxury, I do everything for my sister. But I understand that this was wrong of me to do…" _It's technically true… _

"I smell BS!" The vendor snapped. _IT'S TECHNICALLY TRUE!_

"I'm sorry for your loss, but unfortunately I can't forgive any theft that I saw. I'll have to write you a ticket ma'am…" The officer said without much conviction. _Ok look, see? Neither of us wants to be here? Just move along and I'll get out of everyone's way._

"Oh come on, I said I was sorry! I'm sorry park guy!" She apologized hurriedly.

"Too bad, I want my money." _It's 400 fucking yen!_

"I told you I don't have any! If you want, I can go to the ATM and bring some back in ten minutes."

"Like you'll do that! I want money now!" The vendor snapped again. _Fuck, you are really starting to piss me off!_

"Well I don't have any!"

"Then give me back my pastry!"

"Fine! Here!" She said as she took a big bite and handed it back. _Oh fuck, I probably shouldn't have done that._

"Officer! Do something about this!" _Ah shit. _

"Ma'am, could I see your ID please?" _What?! Really?!_

"Why do you need it?!"

"I need to write you a ticket ma'am." _Oh come on!_

"Well what if I just don't give it to you?"

"Then I'll have to arrest you ma'am for theft and refusal to obey an officer. Please show me your ID." The red-head's face fell at that, as she reluctantly pulled out her wallet, throwing it at the officer. _Shit, I should have just kept my damn mouth shut…_

The officer looked through the wallet, but paused and raised one eyebrow sceptically.

"Why do you have two driver's licenses with your photo but different names ma'am?" The red head's face paled and paused for a moment. _Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit…_

"Um…well…remember when I told you how my parents had died? Well, they died before I turned 18. I had to get a job to support me and my sister, or else we'd have to go to a foster home and I just didn't think we'd do well there. And well…the place I needed to work to be able to support us needed me to be at least 18 so I got a fake ID…" _That's completely true. _

"When did your parents die?" The officer asked with a look of sadness in her eyes. _I can recognize that look anywhere…a Mitakihara survivor._

"Six years ago. In the Mitakihara disaster." _Not true, but for Yuma it was close enough to then and it's most believable so…_

"Ah…I see. Well, ma'am I can see from your ID with the younger birthdate that you are over 18 years of age now, yes…" Sayaka quickly glanced down at the ID "Sakura Kyoko?"

"Yes, I am now. I don't use it anymore, really."

"Well Sakura-san, I'm sorry but I'm going to have to confiscate your fraudulent forms of identification. I'll also have to write you a ticket for the theft…" _No! Shit! Come on!_

"Please officer…" She looked at her badge and saw her name "Miki! You can write me a ticket for the pastry for any amount you want, I'll accept that!"

"I'm glad to hear that but I still need those IDs. Have a nice day Sakura-san." Officer Miki nodded and handed her a ticket for 1,000 yen. _Seriously? You wasted all my time for that? Well, at least it's not expensive…_

"Excuse me, Officer? Who's going to pay for that pastry?" _Really? You're still on that? Chinsy bastard._

"Ah, my apologies sir. Here you are." The officer said while paying him. _Goody two shoes. _

"Have a nice day sir, ma'am." Officer Miki nodded to them and left.

Kyoko stood there dumbfounded. That actually just happened.

"If it's any consolation, I don't want you thrown in jail. I just wanted the money for my stuff." _Fuck you asshole._

Kyoko quickly checked the time on her cell phone.

_Shit, I need to get going. _

* * *

Sayaka arrived at Tomi's out of breath. She still wasn't very familiar with putting in coloured contacts, but everyone figured that the less they could make her look like her, the better. After putting on the wig, contacts, and makeup, she barely recognized herself. She had a cute face, as people generally told her, and frequently had a sort of impish expression. With her new look, any trace of that expression was gone; she looked like a china doll. The makeup made her eyes look bigger and lips look fuller. Her cheek bones were contoured and brows perfectly drawn in. She didn't even know she could look like this. And she was grateful that she didn't sweat too much on the jog in, because she would be giving an awful first impression if she came in with smudgy make-up.

She hadn't had time to finish all her bureaucratic duties yet. She still needed to hand in the fake ID she found and had to write up the report.

Looking around her, she could tell that this wasn't the main part of the bar. It looked more like it was a dance studio with mirrors lining every wall and a pale tiki wooden floor. There were 8 poles throughout the room. _This must be where they do their extra dance lessons._

"Hi, I'm so sorry I'm late! My hair was being very stubborn today." She joked to Tomi. Strippers had to care about their appearance, right?

"That's fine; Sakura isn't ready yet. I know you're new to the industry, but just so you know if you're late again, I'm going to charge you." He said noncommittally. Sayaka was confused.

"I don't understand…"

"Thanks for waiting boss. I've had such a shit day, you have no idea…" A familiar voice said from behind Sayaka. _Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no…_

The stunning redhead walked with a sort of confidence that left Sayaka speechless. She had full makeup on, and was wearing an attractive black leather jacket with skinny jeans. Her black stilettos made her legs look like they went on for miles. Her dark smoky eye makeup accentuated her uniquely beautiful eyes, while her pale pink lips underplayed them. The focus was definitely on her eyes. _Oh my God Sayaka, stop thinking these things, you're working with her and gave her a ticket today! _

"Not a problem, Sakura. I guess I promised you that you wouldn't get late charges for doing this…" He said, slightly agitated. _Am I really that much of a bother, guys?_

"Alright new girl. What song do you want?" Sakura asked while looking through my ipod. _I hope she doesn't judge my taste in music…_

"Would you rather see artistic or strip club?" Sakura and Tomi both raised an eyebrow at Sayaka's question. _Was that the wrong thing to ask? Shit. _

"Show us artistic…" Tomi said, with what may have been a bit of interest in is voice. _Please be interest, please be interest…_

"Can you play 'Rads des Shicksals' by E Nomine?" Sayaka had seen a beautiful performance by a woman in Moscow to this song. Of course, it was actually a pole fail video because the pole fell down, but it wasn't her fault.

Sakura nodded and found the song while Sayaka walked up to the pole, then faced away from it.

"You ready?" Sakura asked. Sayaka nodded. _Just stay calm, you've practiced this so many times. _

The song opened by a man speaking German. Sayaka didn't move. As the high piano notes began to play, she bent her back backwards so her shoulders were against it, moving her leg up and back to stroke along the pole. She let her hands run slowly, lazily, lustily along the contours of her body before they came up behind the pole where her shoulder was resting against. Once the female vocals started, she brought both legs up, looking like she was walking up stairs before she settled with her legs about forty five degrees from the pole, cycling her legs slowly. _Gah, this hurts my abs every time! _

She pulled her legs into the pole and moved her body up so her core was facing the ground. She reached her arms behind her again to show how far she could be her back. _Ow ow ow ow…._

She used where her arms were gripping against the pole to let go with her legs, trying to do a sort of windmill with her legs. _This would look so much cooler if this pole could spin. _

Her feet landed against the ground as she did a pirouette before starting to climb the pole. Once she got near the top, she gripped the pole between her thighs with one leg over the other, looking like she was sitting in a chair. She moved the upper part of her body to the front of the pole, looking like she was bowing. _Mei said this would stop hurting my thighs by now…lying bitch. _

She unfurled her body and went into an inverted hang, allowing herself to slowly slide down the pole. Her skin against the pole created a squeaking sound as she went down. _I hope they didn't hear that._

Landing against the ground in a hand stand, she showed how she could come close to doing the splits in both directions before bending fully backwards, showing how she could come very close to touching her feet to her head. _OW! I think I'm stuck. _

Carefully trying to conceal her difficulty getting out of that pose, she flung her legs back to the front so she could get up again. Barely avoiding hitting her head against the pole as she got up (_I hope they didn't notice that either)_ she continued her dance. By the end of the four minute song, she was trying to not breathe too hard. _Just play it cool…_

Both Sakura and Tomi had unreadable expressions on their faces and looked at each other. They seemed to be having a telepathic conversation. _Please be good thoughts…_

"What's your name, honey?" Tomi asked.

"Yamasaki Rin." Sayaka had rehearsed that many times. It was a unique enough that it sounded real, but generic enough that it would be hard to find out Yamasaki Rin the stripper didn't really exist.

"Well Yamasaki, welcome to the club." Tomi smiled.

* * *

Kyoko arrived at Tomi's out of breath. She couldn't believe how awful a day she'd been having. At least the appointment with the new girl had been pushed back two hours. Tomi recently hired an attractive young new personal assistant named Sango, who was horribly disorganized. Some of the strippers joked she was as bright as a mango, even though the names didn't really rhyme, and guessed she slept with Tomi to get her job. Kyoko knew that the poor girl was actually the daughter of one of Tomi's potential business partners and had been struggling to get a job due to her dyslexia. Sango's dyslexia saved Kyoko's sorry late ass today though.

"Sakura! Sorry for the confusion this morning. Are you ready yet?" Tomi asked with a hint of disdain in his voice, both for her assistant and Kyoko's appearance. He could see that her hair was messy and her makeup wasn't ready yet.

"Just give me a sec-" Her phone rang. It was the generic ring tone, so it wasn't Yuma or anyone from the club. _Who the hell spams people during the day? _Kyoko thought annoyed. From checking the number, she recognized it as Yuma's school. _That's odd…_

"I have to take this." She said hurriedly as she walked into the back.

"Hello, Sakura Kyoko here." She greeted quickly. She guessed it was probably Yuma calling, but it seemed odd that she called her from the school phone. Kyoko bought her a cell phone last year for exactly this purpose (and telling her when she found a witch while she was out, of course).

"Hello Sakura-san. This is Miss Kurasaki, Yuma's art teacher. I was wondering if you would be able to come in some time to discuss Yuma's performance in my class." _Huh? I thought Yuma was good at art. _

"Sure, if you need me to. Is there a problem?"

"Oh no, not at all! I apologize if it came across that way. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I wanted to discuss a potential opportunity for her, but I wanted to talk to you about it privately before telling her about it, in case it wasn't possible for her to go for whatever reason. I wouldn't want to get her hopes up." _Ok? I wonder what this is. _Kyoko thought curiously while trying to multitask between listening and doing her makeup.

"Makes sense to me. I'm busy for the next few hours, but I think I can come over after school hours. Will you be there at 4:00?" Kyoko wasn't sure if she'd be able to do that herself, but the curiosity was killing her. Her shift didn't start until 7:00 anyways.

"Wonderful. I will see you then. Thank you Kyoko-san!" They said their farewells and hung up. After quickly putting on makeup so the new girl could see what a lot of the girls looked like on a typical night, she came out. It was five minutes after 2:00.

"Thanks for waiting boss. I've had such a shit day, you have no idea." She grumbled. And then noticed the new girl standing right there. _Well shit; I look irresponsible now. _

She couldn't help but look over the girl. She looked exactly like her photo, except her hair was a bit more windblown this time around. Her blue bando top complemented her skin nicely, but didn't seem quite right with her eyes. _Her eyes still don't seem right to me either. I don't know why. _

Her green short-shorts worked with everything though, as well as her aqua blue ballerina heels. _I wouldn't have picked shoes quite like that, but to each their own, I guess. As long as she can dance. _

"Not a problem, Sakura. I guess I promised you that you wouldn't get late charges for doing this…" He said, slightly agitated. She could read the hidden message behind it: "You're going to be late every time now, aren't you? I wish I didn't make that deal."

She noticed the new girl's ipod sitting on the ground near her purse and picked it up, beginning to scroll through it. _Classical music and One Direction? This girl has an even stranger taste in music than Yuma._

"Alright new girl. What song do you want?" _Bahaha, I hope she dances to "What makes you beautiful"! I wanna see if she pulls it off or not._

"Would you rather see artistic or strip club?" She asked, the first thing Kyoko had ever heard her say. _Her voice sounds familiar. It's probably nothing. But interesting question…she might be good._

"Show us artistic." Tomi said. _Great minds think alike, eh boss?_

"Can you play "Rads des Schiksals" by E Nomine?" _What the hell kind of name is that? _

Kyoko nodded and found the song while the girl walked to one of the poles to face away from it. _She has a nice silhouette and a great ass. Good starts to working here…_

"You ready?" Kyoko asked. The new girl nodded, so Kyoko hit play.

The song started with a man speaking in a language she didn't recognize, and the girl just stood there. _You're gonna have to do better than that._

Once some soprano notes on a piano started playing, the girl began to bend backwards, tracing her hands along the contours of her body. It wasn't an advanced pole move in any way, but the sensuality of her actions caused Kyoko's breath to hitch in her throat.

Kyoko had admitted a few years ago that she…appreciated feminine beauty more than masculine. She wasn't sure if it was genetic, environmental in that she was surrounded by kind-hearted women and pig-headed men, or if it was some deep-seeded desire to make her clergyman father as ashamed of her as possible. Of course, part of his teachings were to be more accepting of homosexuality, but she would never know if he would have been upset for his own daughter swinging for the other team.

As a female vocalist began to sing, the new girl started showing what she could do. She immediately went inverted, holding her body away from the pole. She already proved that she had more strength than a lot of the other girls did, frankly. Her body moved in acrobatic ways perfectly in time with the music, showcasing her strength, rhythm, and flexibility. Kyoko was almost feeling her mind slipping to dirty places. _She looks great except for her eyes and hair. What the hell is it that I don't like about her eyes and hair?_

The girl's skin made a painful sounding squeak as she moved down the pole (_Meh, the music will drown that out_), but she continued to dance nonetheless, clearly undeterred. As she bent her body almost completely backwards (_Holy shit!_), she kicked her legs back to stand up next to the pole (_Watch your head there_). She continued with her dance, some of the moves that clearly would have been more spectacular had she had a spinning pole instead of a stationary one (_Does she not know that the pole five feet away from her spins?_), but they were impressive and wonderfully executed nonetheless. Even Kyoko, who was by far the best dancer at the club was impressed.

After the song was over, the girl was clearly trying to keep her breath in check. Kyoko admired the effort. She and Tomi looked at each other, but after having known each other for so long they could understand that the other one voted yes to hire her.

"What's your name, honey?" Tomi asked the new girl.

"Yamasaki Rin." She answered quickly.

"Well Yamasaki, welcome to the club."

* * *

AN: Thanks for reading this everyone! I want to give credit where it's due. I got the idea to continue the Oriko Magica timeline from jackkel dragon, whose story is great! I would definitely recommend reading it, and I want to thank jackkel for letting me loosely use their idea!

I originally wanted this to be a oneshot, but I can tell that this is going to be waaayyy too long (I think I'm a tenth done this max; maybe I can try doing this for NanoWrimo? I've never entered that before but always wanted to). I'm nervous I won't finish this, because I have done that with every single other non-oneshot story that I've written. I drive myself crazy, but in some cases (like my South Park one), I just can't write the characters right anymore or in others (my early day Inuyasha ones…yeah…) I cringe when I see how I wrote them.

I want to apologize if there are any cultural errors in this story. The way that the stripping industry works is based on the Canadian industry (no, I don't work in it but I've had family who've audited them and friends who've worked in it so they told me how it works). I do pole dance, so that's how I know about all the moves. As for Sayaka as a cop, I know how long it takes to graduate the police academy in Canada (could very easily be different in Japan) and as for how going undercover works, that's totally based on movies I've watched, so that could VERY easily be wrong.

This story has quickly been getting bigger and bigger. Originally, Kyoko wasn't a hit man or anything, just a stripper. Sayaka wasn't an addict at any point (you'll have to bear with me for the next few chapters; I swear I'll explain why I think that happened) before, but she was now. I honestly have debated a lot about Sayaka's past. After (re-)reading Oriko Magica (again), I found out just how traumatized Hitomi was, and how easy it would be to blame Sayaka for Madoka's death. And of course, adding in those two details completely changed how the story was going to go.

If you notice any plot holes, please don't be afraid to let me know! There is one that I know is in there, but that's foreshadow for now ;) However, if anything hasn't made sense, please let me know and I'll try to clear it up in the next few chapters! I'm trying to make, what I think, is a realistic continuation of Oriko Magica so if anyting is clearly wrong (which it easily could be), I'd love to try to work it out.

Also, this is rated M because it's going to be a smutfest starting next chapter (and honestly, my first attempt at smut; fingers crossed I'm decent!). You have been warned!

Thanks for reading this so far! Please feel free to drop a review or let me know if you have any ideas for the story!


	2. Chapter 2

The walk to the school was mostly silent. Kyoko regretted agreeing to meet Yuma's teacher today, but she was curious and patience was never a virtue of hers. And luckily, the new girl wasn't too much of a chatter…but Kyoko had a bad feeling that she could be if she let her.

"Alright rookie, there are a few rules to working with us that you gotta know. I've been working there the longest, so I'm an assistant manager of sorts. I've gone over these rules hundreds of times. The only thing that makes me madder than having to explain them to another new girl is to have to explain them to the same person _twice_. So listen up so I don't have to repeat myself. Got that?" Kyoko barked. Part of her knew she was being overly harsh to her new protégé; it wasn't like it was her fault she was having such a shit day. At the same, a larger part of her simply didn't give a damn.

"Got it!" _Ugh, this girl is too chirpy_.

"First rule: customers can't touch you. You can touch them, within boundaries of course. But if you let a customer touch you, they'll start touching other girls and most of us are here to be strippers, not prostitutes. And when I say you can touch them, I mean lap dances, at the most! Don't go around thinking it's ok to give blow jobs to get extra tips! We're a strip club, not a brothel. If you make any customers confused about that, I'll make you regret it." This was a disgusting problem that they had a _lot_.

"Ok!" The girl said with a clear sigh of relief. _Good sign, at least. _

"Going off of that: don't think just because some guy gives you lots of tips or says sweet things to you means he's in love with you either. Guys don't go to our club to fall in love; they go there because they're horny. Don't fuck that up, for the sake of keeping our client base and the sanity of the dressing room intact." There had been an issue a few years ago where one of the girls, a poor, stupid idealistic fool thought a wealthy news anchor had fallen in love with her. The dumbass deliberately got pregnant to convince him to leave his wife. He ended up bribing her to stay quiet and get an abortion. She went crazy and left town while he and his friends never came back to the club. Which sucked, because they all gave good tips and drank lots of sake.

"Not a problem." The blonde nodded in a way that looked like she was trying to show a deep and sage understanding. She had no idea what she was getting into…

"Second official rule: what happens in the club, stays in the club. We have some very high profile customers who want to get away from their wives a bit. We have some upscale businessmen who make deals here that could blow the stock market away. We also have some less reputable businessmen who make deals here that could blow the cops away. In any case, they come to Tomi's because they know we won't tell. And so help me, if you try to tell, I _will _make you regret it." Again, they had had issues with this before. A sneaky bitch a few years ago was actually a paparazzo. Got some dirt on their more political customers before an upcoming election. Never made it to the papers though. Kyoko….took care of it, let's say. Nothing illegal, of course; just a bit of enchantment magic to convince her it was a horrible idea to tell and that she should leave Kazamino. There were no threats involved…none at all…of course, because that would be illegal, and wrong.

"Of course." The girl said. There was something in her voice, in her expression, in _something _that made Kyoko think this rule had struck a chord somewhere, but she wasn't sure. She also didn't care because she wouldn't let this amateur ruin what had given her and Yuma a stable income for the past five and a half years.

Kyoko hesitated, scrutinizing the girl walking beside her. The girl beside her kept a stoic face. Kyoko let out a sigh.

"Alright, third and last official rule then."

* * *

The walk to the school had been mostly silent. This didn't bother Sayaka too much. She remembered in training that it was best to build up a trust before being able to dig into anything. She was more likely to be seen as trustworthy if she didn't say much than if she talked a lot; the more she talked, the more likely it would be that she would let something slip.

Hearing the fiery girl beside her fire off rules at her was intimidating. Especially because she was full-out threatening at times. _I wonder if she knows it's illegal to threaten a police officer…does it count if she doesn't know it's a cop? I feel like the general principle still stands…_

The first rule had come as a relief to her. She had been terrified that grimy old drug dealers would be touching her _all _over. She hated the thought of someone as disgusting as a criminal touching her no-no parts, as her parents used to call them.

The second rule terrified her. It made sense to have it as a rule. Hell, the shady dealings of Tomi's were why she was sent in in the first place. But Sayaka had always been a surprisingly good judge of character, and she knew her abrasive mentor was honest and capable of carrying out her threat in one way or another. It took everything in her power to keep a neutral face and not shiver under her judgmental gaze. Something about it made her pulse pick up and breath become shaky; must be the nerves.

"Alright, third and last official rule then." Sayaka nodded to show she was listening. She had paid attention in the active listening section of class at the Police Academy!

"Don't be late. Ever. And by this, I don't mean you show up to the club when your shift starts. It means you're in full costume and makeup no less than ten minutes before your shift starts. If you're late, you get fined." That confused Sayaka, and clearly it showed from the way Kyoko rolled her eyes.

"Right, you're new in the industry. Basically, you're not quite an employee per say. You're more of a contractor. You don't actually get a salary. You get money from tips. And if you're late, you get charged for it because Tomi's will look bad by not having a full staff. For the first ten minutes of waiting, you'll be charged $30. From ten to twenty minutes, you have to add another $40. From twenty to thirty minutes, add $50. After that, you just owe Tomi $300. If you show up when it's not your shift, you get sent home and fined $100."

"That seems harsh." Sayaka noted. Kyoko shrugged.

"It makes sure people show up when they're supposed to. Having too many girls can dilute tips which makes us lose some of our top talent. Having too few girls makes us unappealing to customers who don't exactly come for the chicken wings, even though they are freaking delicious." Strangely enough, Sayaka had heard that somewhere too. She would have to try them while she was there.

There was something kind of exciting about having to be super punctual. Sayaka had never been the best with that. Maybe this undercover work could help her work on some more of her self-betterment goals that she kept ditching! She could also lose that five pounds she'd been meaning to, or actually start washing dishes right after she'd used them…

While Sayaka got lost in her reverie of all of her failed little goals from over the years, Kyoko had kept talking.

"-so for the love of _God _if you want to show off pole tricks, make sure you put chalk on your hands first in case the next person is a slipper instead of a sticker!" _Huh? _

"Got it!"

"Another unofficial rule, going off of the last one. You're not in competition with the other workers. Sure, you all want to get the regulars who tip the best. And believe me, regulars tip way better than first timers or drop-ins. But if a client is already a regular for another girl who's on that shift, _don't go for that client_. First come, first serve. That's the ultimate way to piss someone, especially me off. I fucking _hate _hearing about this kind of bullshit, and I hear it all the time as it is so if I hear it about you, I'm going to be pissed!" _if I don't steal anyone's clients though, how can I get any information?_

Sayaka wisely stopped herself before that question popped out.

"Also, remember how I told you before clients couldn't touch you, but you could touch them? Well, you should touch them for one. Clients don't only come to drool all over us, but they want to feel desired. Sell the illusion that you actually want them. But doing that, assuming you're doing it right, also makes them think you want them to touch you, which as we agreed is bad. If anyone ever tries to touch you, discretely wave a bouncer over to break it up. It's the bouncer's fault, not yours then. But, if you see a girl who's stuck and can't get a bouncer's attention, intervene somehow. Be nice, hell be sexy about it somehow if you can. You help them, they help you. Good karma, you know?"

That certainly made sense to Sayaka, but she just knew that the cop in her would want to beat up the guys who were basically sexually harassing the poor women. She would have to control that urge, which would be damn hard if they were the scumbags she was supposed to get. If there was one thing she had learned, bad people don't always get what they deserve. And neither do the good.

Seeing Kazamino Middle School was a bit of blast from the past. The building itself didn't look like it fit together properly. There were three sections to the school; the old, the new, and the Hizuki wing, which was actually newer than the new wing. The old wing was a large, rectangular pale yellow stucco building with red doors and window frames that clashed badly. The new wing had a smooth, pale green exterior with white doors and circular windows that would have looked quite attractive on its own. The Hizuki wing, built after the Mitakihara disaster to accommodate the influx of new students was all glass, just like Mitakihara Middle School. They had done that to try to remind the new students of home.

The administrators had been very confused when the majority of the Mitakihara students requested to have classes in the other wings.

"Just wait out here. I'll be back in ten minutes or something. I think." Kyoko said, seeming unsure. Sayaka suspected that the redhead wasn't very sure herself what she was doing at the gaudy school.

"Alright, I'll wait here." The redhead nodded and confidently walked into the school. She stopped, turned to face the map for visitors, and started to look increasingly frustrated over a matter of seconds. _Patience isn't this one's strong point, is it? _

Sayaka sighed and went inside to join her lost mentor.

* * *

This was uncomfortable. Kyoko knew she had to go to an art lab to meet her teacher, but wasn't sure if it was art lab A, B, or C. The teacher told her the Hizuki lab, but that word didn't have the fucking letter A, B, or C in it!

"Where are you trying to go?" The new kid asked.

"Didn't I tell you to wait outside?" _Is the bitch seriously disobeying me after we've been working together for thirty minutes? _

"You look like you don't know where you're going." _No shit, Sherlock. _"I used to go here so I figured maybe I could help." Kyoko's pride wanted to tell the blonde Lady Gaga lookalike to go to hell. Kyoko's sense was telling her that she had no idea where she was going and was already late.

"Hizuki art lab. Now." Rin nodded and started walking, taking a series of turns going up and down stairs (_Why is this school so fucked up? I mean really, who needs to go up two flights of stairs and then go down again? These teachers are supposed to want to spend time with the kids, so why do they need their own private area?_) before approaching a glass door that said "Art Lab C: Hizuki Lab".

"Thanks. Wait here." Kyoko said begrudgingly, rushing in and not wanting to be with the living doll any longer. The room was large with surprisingly pristine white tables scattered haphazardly along the borders of the studio. A group of about ten students were in a messy circle in the middle, working on paintings of different colours and themes. One stylish, wealthy looking girl with sleek dark brown hair was working on what looked like fashion designs (_typical_) while an overweight, messy looking boy next to her seemed to be drawing a self-portrait; a very dark and deformed one that really struck Kyoko. She noticed her little sister next to him, appearing to be starting a painting of the hellhound witch they had fought together last week.

She dropped a box of pocky on the young artist's lap, ruffling the 'hot mess' of green hair before leaning against her to look at the painting in progress.

"Whatcha working on?" Kyoko asked casually.

"Whatcha doing here?" The greenette replied skeptically.

"Sakura-san! Thank you very much for coming in on such short notice." The art teacher exclaimed as she emerged from her office. The school looked like it was put together strangely, and so did this woman. She was very petite, barely coming up to Kyoko's shoulders; and Kyoko wasn't all that tall. She had short, mousy brown hair in a mom-hairstyle bob that did nothing to make her pop more, and neither did the frameless glasses against her mousy brown eyes. This woman simply looked like a mouse.

But her _clothes_. She was wearing a purple and pink tie-dye maxi dress with what looked like a large dream catcher around her neck. She also had a surprisingly deep voice for a woman that Kyoko could tell would boom if she ever spoke loudly enough. She could see what Yuma meant when she called the teacher a tad eccentric.

"Yeah, not a problem."

"Am I in trouble?" Yuma whispered nervously.

"You better not be." Kyoko replied threateningly.

"I _told_ you on the phone, Sakura-san. It's nothing like that. Please come into my office." The deceptively deep voice boomed, startling all of the room's current user. A few students cursed under their breaths, clearly messing up their artworks. It was pretty rare to find someone who could command Kyoko's obedience, but this woman did it. She rushed after her into the small office in the back, quietly closing the door behind her. While the other room had been large, neat, and white, this one was small, crowded, and if the walls were white Kyoko couldn't tell; every inch of it was covered by some sort of painting.

"_What's going on? Tell me!" _Yuma yelled telepathically.

"_I just got in here, how fast do you think we can talk to each other? And shut up, I'm trying to listen." _

"Again, thank you for coming. I'm sorry for rushing you in here. I don't want the students to find out yet."

"Find out about what?" The mousy teacher smiled, like she had some sort of juicy secret to tell and had been holding back from telling everyone for months. But that could very well be what this meeting was for.

"_Yeah, find out about what?"_

"_Yuma get out of my head! How can you even do that?!"_

"_You didn't close off your link. Don't blame me that you're lazy." _Kyoko made sure the close the link with a mental slam.

A loud "Ow!" could be heard from the studio. _Oops, too hard. _

"Every year, Kazamino Middle School lets some programs take their top students on trips to develop their skills. For example; the Japanese literary club went to Kyoto last year; the English club went to London; and the environmental club went to the Costa Rican rainforest. The teacher said that was a nightmare!" She said with excitement.

"Ok..."

"This year the art program has been given some funding to go to New York City to attend a three-week workshop on modern art and design! It's truly a thrilling opportunity. It's been incredibly difficult to decide who should be nominated, but I think it's only fair that the art club students get to go. They have worked so much and clearly show the most dedication. And some of them, Yuma in particular, show the greatest amount of natural talent I've ever seen."

"Oh, uh, that sounds really neat."

"Indeed! I wanted to talk to you first because I had heard that you might not be able to afford this..."

"Depends. How much is it going to cost?"

"Workshop fees, travel, accommodations, and food will probably come out to 300,000 yen." _Fuck, that's like three months' rent! _"But we do have a scholarship program at the school that I am planning on nominating Yuma for. I can't guarantee she would get anything though since it's quite competitive. So if you did want to send Yuma, I would plan for the worst and budget that much. I wanted to speak to you first, because I didn't want to put you in a position where I tell everyone about this and get Yuma's hopes up. I hope that wasn't overstepping any boundaries."

"No, no, it's fine." _I think I might have a contract or two coming up and I'll make that money in no time but it would be nice to not have to pay that much. _"We actually have a lot of money in savings from our parents' life insurance policies. I just didn't want to use it all up before she got a chance to go to university, you know? But Mom and Dad would have really wanted her to go, so I'm sure they'd be proud of us for using the money like this…"

The teacher looked very, very uncomfortable.

"I'm so sorry for your loss. I was upset about losing my cat in the Mitakihara disaster; I can't imagine losing my parents. I promise you, I will do _everything _in my power to get Yuma one of the scholarships. I'm sure if I explain your…family situation that the board will be exceptionally generous. Your case is quite rare, after all." _We're getting closer… _She made tears start to well up in her eyes.

"Thank you so much for your help! I really, really appreciate it. You know, Yuma was always to more special one of the two of us; you know, smarter, nicer, more artistic, everything. I may have been a screw up before our parents died, but now that I'm all she has, I want her to be able to have all of the things she deserves, you know? It's just…it's hard sometimes." She started to cry. Fake tears, of course. "It's hard seeing all of these kids who have it so much better just because they were lucky enough to have great, rich families. Families that could provide for them; families that are better than me." The teacher looked like she was about to cry now too.

"No, Sakura-san Yuma is so lucky to have you! She has gotten to do everything any other child has gotten to do, really. Listen to me: I…I promise I will find a way to get her to go on this trip if money will be a problem. You don't have to worry. You've been doing your best and-"

"Really? I mean…can you do that? Only if money's a problem, I mean. I bet if I take on double shifts, I can get some extra tips at the bar at night and restaurant during the day…"

"Yes! I mean, do what you can, but please don't feel like you need to work yourself into the ground. I can make this work out, really. I can contribute towards this too if you need it."

Kyoko wiped some tears from her eyes, hiccupping a bit. "Really?"

"Yes, of course! Yuma is one of my most promising students. I would hate for her to miss this opportunity, or for you to feel like you have to sacrifice yourself for this. No matter what, we can make this work."

Kyoko nodded, a small gentle smile gracing her tear stained face.

"Th-thank you. Thank you so much. You have no idea how much this means to me. And to Yuma, I'm sure."

"Of course, Sakura-san. This can be our little secret. And if you don't mind me, I have a big announcement to make." She said winking.

_Got you. _Kyoko thought with a smirk as the kind-hearted teacher left the office. _I hope this didn't smudge my makeup too badly._

* * *

This was uncomfortable. Sayaka felt strange standing outside of a middle school art room as a nineteen year old cop who wasn't even doing one of those presentations to scare kids into not doing drugs. The fact that she felt she was wearing ridiculously dark makeup didn't help any either. _Should I go outside and wait there? Or will hanging around outside make me look more suspicious?_

She sighed and looked around nostalgically. Well, not really all that nostalgically; she hadn't really spent much time in this part of the school before. None of her friends had been particularly talented artistically. Kyousuke was obsessed with music, even after the accident had broken his back and took away the ability to move his fingers so he joined the music club as a support kind of person. Hitomi and Sayaka were both in the drama club, though neither were particularly good with attending practice; Hitomi got panic attacks being out too long and Sayaka just didn't care enough. And then the other one…he just didn't join anything.

_I wonder what clubs Madoka or Homura would have joined? _

She flinched at the thought. It was hard not to think of the friends she lost in middle school while she was in one. But, she needed to focus on the matter at hand. This was her first day as an undercover cop and she felt awkward as hell. The movies always made it look like undercovers were so cool all the time.

The movies also made it look like she would be in car chases and shooting bad guys. She had only ever had a runner once, and he was piss drunk. He didn't even run fifteen feet before he tripped into a fountain. That was also her first arrest.

All in all, things weren't nearly as excited as she had expected them to be.

"Ow!"

She looked inside the room at the source of the noise. A green-haired girl sitting in front of a beautiful, deranged painting of some sort of monster had made it. She was rubbing her forehead.

"Yeah, I'm fine, just a sudden migraine I guess." Sayaka could hear her voice muffled from the door. She intrigued her, and Sayaka wasn't sure why. She felt like she had met her before. She had noticed that Kyoko seemed to know that girl; she must be her little sister. But they didn't look a thing alike.

Kyoko was fairly tall and slender; not much in the way of curves. She had a very feminine face, but it still had angles; a sharp nose, fairly thin lips and defined cheekbones. And, of course, her bright red hair and crimson eyes that naturally fell into a sort of "come hither" look.

Her little sister seemed to be her opposite in a lot of ways. She was small, likely because she was still growing though. But while she was maybe twelve or thirteen, she already had larger breasts than Kyoko (_Oh god, it is so rape-y that I noticed that_). Her face, while showing similar cheek bones had much softer features overall. Her eyes were big like Kyoko's, but they were rounder, blue, and more childlike in a way. She was cute. _She looks like a green-haired Madoka_.

Maybe that was it? She reminded her of Madoka and that's why she thought they had met? She couldn't think of how or when they would have met otherwise.

"Everyone, I have some exciting news! As many of you know, every year a few programs are selected to take its top students on travel opportunities. This year, the art program was selected to go to New York, and I have nominated all of you to go." A collective gasp was heard in the room.

It was almost heartbreaking to watch Kyoko's little sister. She just had a polite little smile on her face that didn't reach her eyes. She clearly didn't assume she was going anywhere.

Sayaka watched the scene before her unfold with interest. She saw Kyoko nonchalantly come up behind her sister and wrap her arm around the girl' shoulders, looking at her painting in progress. She said something that Sayaka couldn't hear, but she sure heard the younger greenette's excited scream as she turned around, jumping into her older sister's arms.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you Onee-chan! I love you, thank you!" _Aww_.

She quickly scrambled back, face flushed with evident embarrassment. She said something, again that Sayaka couldn't hear. She heard her crimson-haired mentor's bark of a laugh though.

"Yeah, nice try loser. Anyways, I've got to go back to get ready for work. I'll see you at home."

Sayaka scrambled back to try to make it look like she wasn't watching everything happening inside the room. Kyoko exiting the room to find that Sayaka had tripped and fallen flat on her ass did not help Sayaka achieve this goal.

"I was just sick of standing."

"Sure you were." She said helping her up. _At least she's not as mean as she comes across. She's a big softie inside. _

Then, something dawned on her.

"Hey, um, can I ask you a question?" She asked tentatively as they exited the front doors of the school. She noticed her red-haired counterpart's shoulders stiffen.

"That's a dangerous thing to do when you work at the club, so I'd highly recommend that you not." Curt, but not angry.

"Ok, but…can I ask it?" The red-head sighed.

"Go ahead."

"That girl in there, the one with the green hair, that's your little sister, right?"

"Yeah, what about her?"

"Where are your parents?" The red-head stiffened even more. Sayaka was curious as to just how much of the truth the red-head had been telling before in the park. She was surprised that there was an actual little sister, and she honestly felt bad about it.

"They died. Mitakihara disaster six years ago." Sayaka couldn't tell if she was lying. She usually had a good sense for these things. She had no reason to doubt it, and definitely no good reason to ask any more about it. She was still curious, but she had to be careful to not overstep her boundaries this early in the game…or at all.

"I'm…really sorry to hear that. I lost people there too. Is that why you're working at the club now?"

"Remember when I told you not to ask questions, like two minutes ago?"

"Ah, right. I'm sorry, I was just….yeah, I'm sorry." _Too much, idiot! Just shut up! _Her mentor sighed again, this time more aggravated than the last.

"But yeah, it is. And I can tell you're the type who doesn't know when to keep her mouth shut, so I'll tell you now; keep your mouth shut. Most people at the club, coworkers and clients, don't know about her and I like it that way. If it were up to me, you wouldn't know about her either, but that school is a fucking maze. So seriously, don't talk about her, ok?"

"Uh, yeah, sure! Don't worry, your secret's safe with me!" _That's kind of odd, but ok…_

"And one other informal rule I guess I should have told you about before, while we're on the topic…don't ask why people started to work at the club. It's never a happy story. I doubt you grew up dreaming about being a stripper."

"I haven't really dreamt of being anything for the last few years." It was the honest to God truth.

"Ok." It didn't sound like she cared. Sayaka was miffed, but hell she felt like talking.

"Heroine's one hell of a drug." Kyoko's eyes widened.

"Ah…yeah I've heard." She looked like was thinking about saying something. "Why would you tell me that?" Sayaka got embarrassed. She really hadn't thought that through.

"I don't know…I guess I kind of want you to like me if we're going to be working together. And hey, now I know a secret about you and you know one about me, right? So we're even?"

The red-heard looked at her incredulously. _I'm an idiot. _

To her surprise, the red-haired grinned and offered her a stick of pocky. _Where did she get that? _

"I guess you're right. Just a heads up though; don't tell anyone else at the club about that, ok? No clients or coworkers, even if you think you're friends. A lot of people have a lot of connections there and they won't hesitate to screw you over. You look pretty clean to me, so I'm guessing you don't want to go back to that; am I right?"

_Shit, I didn't even think about that. Is this going to be way harder than I thought?_ She thought as she chewed on the chocolate and biscuit snack.

"Yeah. Thanks for the heads up." She smiled genuinely.

They kept walking towards downtown. Sayaka glanced at the time on the new phone work gave her for this assignment; 4:45. Their shift didn't start until 7:00. And considering that it was a Wednesday night, she was sure that there wouldn't be too much to prepare for.

_Maybe we'll be fine. _

* * *

The new girl seemed alright to her. She didn't piss her off as much as the others did which was a welcome change of pace for Kyoko.

They spoke amicably on the way back to the club. Rin joked about her overly dramatic friends and how that could prepare her for the drama of the club. Kyoko in turned told her stories to make it clear that she had no idea what was coming her way.

They stopped by a ramen store for dinner on the way, which Rin was adamant about paying for. _Can't complain. _

They were mostly silent as they ate, with Rin asking an occasional question like "How do you keep your hair so healthy when it's so long?" and "Do you ever have problems with your makeup getting smudged from sweating while dancing?"

"If you're doing things right, you won't be on the pole that much or getting all that much of a workout."

"Oh…so this won't be a good job for helping me get in shape?"

"Nope, If you're anything like everyone else at the club, you're going to get ramen noodles here before almost every shift and barely be on the pole at all."

"Well shit." The new girl said without a hint of sadness in her tone. Kyoko smirked.

"So…your sister's going to New York, huh? That's pretty cool! Have you ever travelled yourself?" Kyoko's improved mood started to waver. She was hoping they wouldn't talk about Yuma anymore.

"No, never had the money or the time."

"Oh…well I guess you must have been saving up, right? Do you think you'll go to New York with her?" _Things were going well, ok? Now shut up. _

"No, and I'm going to take a few extra shifts to get the money. Can you drop the subject? I don't like thinking about family this close to show time. It gets me distracted."

"Ah, right! Sorry. That makes sense. I'll just…yeah." _And now it's awkward. _Kyoko sighed. She realized she had probably been using a bit too much of a 'scare' tactic on the new girl.

"You don't need to be so freaked out by me, ok? I'm scary if you get me mad, but you haven't done anything yet. So relax. I mostly described the worst things about the club to get you ready. I'm sure you'll be fine. Besides, you get tons of money here once you really get going and most of your coworkers are nice, non-dramatic people; it's great, ok?"

"Yeah, I get it. Thanks. I really appreciate your help." _She has a sweet smile_ Kyoko thought as she lazily, and only partially sincerely smiled back.

* * *

This girl seemed alright to her. Sayaka was slowly feeling more and more settled around her, despite the rocky start that she was grateful the other one had no idea that they had.

"The cop wrote me a ticket for 1,000 yen. 1,000 yen! Who the hell does that? It's more of a waste of time to pay than a waste of money!" _Oops. That was supposed to be 10,000. My supervisor's going to chew me out over that one._

"That's ridiculous. That's exactly why I hate cops. They think they do so much good for society and act like heroes when all they do is write pointless tickets. I can't even count how many parking tickets I've gotten. Don't they have anything better to do?" It pained Sayaka to say that, but she hoped she sounded convincing. Parking violations were a legitimate crime to punish, goddammit!

"I know, right? Assholes, all of them."

"Totally."

They went back to eating, and Sayaka couldn't help but watch Kyoko in fascination. _I have never seen anyone eat like that. _Sayaka's ramen order had been half the size, but she was already full and still had about a quarter of it left. Kyoko on the other hand was ripping through hers, eating like she hadn't eaten in a week.

"You going to finish that?" _My God woman, do you have a bottomless pit for a stomach?_

"Uh, no. Are you sure you have room? Aren't you worried about being too full to perform? It's ok, I can just throw it-" Sayaka was cut off by Kyoko grabbing the ramen bowl with her chopsticks at a speed Sayaka had never witnessed before.

"Don't. Waste. Food." She snarled. Sayaka relented, releasing the bowl and putting her hands above her head.

"Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. Just don't waste food, ok?"

"Got it." _Not really, but whatever floats your boat. _Kyoko quickly finished up both meals like a ravenous dog.

"It's past 6:00. We need to get going."

Sayaka nodded and got everything together. They walked to the club, as silent as they had been before.

* * *

Kyoko was frustrated. First, Rei and Lei were on this shift and they were fighting a-fucking-gain because Lei was trying to copy all of Rei's outfits.

"You bitch! Why can't you think of anything on your own?! Leave me alone!"

"Oh shut up you little cunt; you wouldn't even make half the tips you do without me!"

Rin's eyes were wide with something akin to fear as she watched the dramatic similar-looking girls screeching at each other across the dressing room. Everyone else ignored it easily enough.

"Koko, who's your friend?" A tall, beautiful looking amazon type woman asked, with what was clearly a man's voice.

"Lady, this is Rin, a new girl here. Rin, this is Lady. She and I do a lot of work together here; our clients are friends."

"Hi, nice to meet you!" Rin said pleasantly, extending her arm for a handshake. She seemed unfazed by Lady, so she was off to a better start than most of the girls who start here.

"Nice to meet you too, Rin. I'm guessing you'll be shadowing us tonight then, eh? What's your stage name, just so I know."

"Stage name? Ah, I hadn't thought of that yet."

"Well, you have about thirty minutes to decide the name that we'll call you for the rest of your life, so make it a good one!" Rin just blinked her big green eyes at a loss for words.

"Uh…"

"I'm sure we'll figure something out." Kyoko said, casually throwing an arm around the newbie. "Come on, we need to get your outfit."

"Oh! I know the perfect one for you! I would have worn it myself but I think I'm a bit big for it." Lady said, pointing to her massive surgically enhanced bosom.

Lady was a unique one. Yes, it was obvious when she spoke that she was still pre-op, but she was still a beautiful woman. Kyoko stopped thinking of people as weird a long time ago when she got used to going out in a frilly red dress to fight monsters every night; she had no right to call anyone else weird.

And Lady knew the most about how to do hair and makeup out of everyone who had ever worked here. In fact, she always came in extra early just so she could help everyone else get ready. Kyoko had already done her dark, sultry makeup earlier for when Rin came by to show her what would be appropriate makeup. Lady had created an unofficial rule of "no tramp makeup"; anyone who tried wearing bright blue eye shadow with bright red lipstick wasn't allowed on stage. It was actually pretty funny to Kyoko just how many girls had gotten mad, and busted about that.

"Here you go!" She came back with a very see-through green dress that had blue starfish pasties that would glue onto her breasts and a blue thong. Rin looked like she was about to pass out.

"You could be wearing a lot less, you know." Kyoko said knowingly. Just as she said that, one the curly-haired blonde girls who went by "Marilyn" walked by topless with what Kyoko assumed were crotchless panties.

"Where's the rest of her outfit?" Rin whispered.

"That is her outfit. See? I told you you could be wearing a lot less."

"Sweetie, if you're shy about your body, you're in the wrong line of work."

"I'm not shy about my body! What are you talking about?" A pink-haired girl wearing pigtails yelled from behind Lady.

"Not you, Sweetie, I'm talking to the new girl." Sweetie came around to meet Rin. Sweetie was a short, stocky thing; very cute. She had been dubbed Pippi Longstocking before due to her formerly red hair and freckles; turns out she had been ridiculed about that her entire life and didn't want to have anything to do with the name. So she dyed her hair and went by 'Sweetie' after Sweetie IV quit.

"Nice to meet you! I'm Sweetie. What's your name?"

Rin looked distinctly uncomfortable, probably because the girl in front of her was completely nude.

"S-So nice to meet you! I'm Rin." She smiled back. Kyoko laughed. _I hate training new girls, but their first reactions are always priceless._

"No, what's your stage name? We don't care about real names here. You told her that, didn't you Koko?" Kyoko didn't get a particularly creative name.

"I did, but she hasn't thought of one yet. Can't blame that one on me."

"Oh, we get to name you! I love coming up with names!" A few girls nearby heard and came over to start chattering with Rin about what her name could be. Rin looked nervous, but the scantily clad girls knew enough to ignore it.

"Want me to do your hair while she's busy?" Lady offered, stroking the red locks. Kyoko was lucky that Lady loved working with her hair.

"Thanks Lady."

* * *

Sayaka was frustrated. Kyoko freaking ditched her and now these girls, some of whom were naked that she had never met were tearing her clothes off. _Literally_ tearing them off! _I think one of the buttons came off on my jacket!_

"Oooh, green looks gorgeous on you! It matches your eyes. Maybe we can call her Lucky?"

"Isn't there a Lucky that usually works on Mondays?"

"Oh, right."

"The stars are cute! How about Star?" Another purple-haired girl chimed in.

"Star works Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. She'd be mad about that." Sweetie responded. "Why are all the good names taken?" She pouted. _Because they all sound like good stripper names._

"How do you want to do your hair? Oh, I know! Hang on." A girl who looked foreign, maybe Thai ran off. _Oh dear Lord what did I sign up for? _

After fifteen minutes of girls of various backgrounds and 'stage personas' milling about, she emerged from the mass with her hair gently falling in glossy waves around the outfit Lady had picked out. She had been terrified that they would singe the wig. But she had to admit, she felt pretty.

"Aaawww, you're so pretty!" The purple-haired girl, Violet chimed in. _Not a very creative name either._

"Thanks for your help everyone! I really appreciate it."

An alarm rang, signalling that their shift was starting in two minutes.

"I don't have a name!" Sayaka was freaking out. Everyone made it very clear that she needed to have one, and she had to fit in. She couldn't stand out from the crowd. She had to blend in and be a fly on the wall, just like Ryo taught her. Screaming "I don't have a name!" was probably the wrong way to start that.

"Don't worry, you can figure one out while you're out there. It's not like you'll be performing tonight."

The chaos that ensued as girls started filing out to work left Sayaka alone behind and confused in the dressing room until the first group started filing in.

"Aren't you supposed to be out there?" An older looking stripper, maybe in her mid-forties asked.

"This is my first shift and I have no idea what to do."

"The first thing you should do is go out there."

"Right." And with that, Sayaka went out, not realizing that she was heading straight for the centre stage.

* * *

Kyoko smiled in a way that looked sincere, but inside she was sneering. She had perfected the art of looking and sounding one way when really thinking another. It was crucial in this line of work.

She was sitting on her top client's lap; Kurosawa Yuta.

"I missed you Yuta-sama! You were gone for so long." She pouted as she played with what was left of his thinning hair. It was a good thing Kyoko was quite slender, because Yuta was not. He wasn't obese, but he was definitely overweight which occasionally made her more acrobatic lap dances a bit difficult. She had to spread her legs a bit more than she would like to be able to do any of the moves facing away from him, which she felt was a bad combination with the short clothes she usually wore. She knew he thought it was quite a good combination.

"Aw, I missed you too Koko. Could I have a massage? My neck is very _stiff_." He said condescendingly with an emphasis on the word 'stiff' that made Kyoko shudder inside. None the less, she started to massage him as he requested.

Kurosawa was the type of man who wanted to break her. But she had to admit she respected him.

Kurosawa Yuta was not an ordinary customer. He was not an ordinary man, either. He was practically the drug overlord of Kazamino and the surrounding area, but the cops had never managed to get enough proof on him. That and he had one of the best, and most crooked lawyers in Japan on speed dial.

He was also one of the few who knew about Kyoko's contract work. Most people knew there was someone connected to the club who could do great work for anyone who would pay the price; Kurosawa was one of the only ones who knew it was her. She wished no one knew, but these crime gangs were family affairs and Tomi and Kurosawa were cousins. Therefore, any business partner of Tomi's was a business partner of Kurosawa. And it left Kyoko stuck in this situation.

"Oh, that's good. You always give the best massages Koko." He said pleasantly, handing her a note for 5,000 yen. He was sometimes an ass who overplayed his position of power here, but hey, he tipped well because he knew he needed her. He also never stuck money in her clothes, which was a small gesture she had to admit she appreciated. She still stashed it there though.

"And who's this handsome young man?" She asked, looking at a man who appeared to be in his late twenties. He appeared to be a younger, fuller-haired thin version of the man whose lap she was sitting on now, and distinctly uncomfortable being here. Kyoko couldn't blame him. She'd be pretty uncomfortable if she were sitting next to her father while he was getting a lap dance too.

"Ah, of course. Koko, this is my son, Fusao. He's going to be helping with the family business from now on."

"Nice to meet you Fusao-sama." She _hated _calling them by the suffix –sama, but it gave Kurosawa a power rush, which in turn gave her more tips. "Are you going to be coming here a lot too then?" She asked as she began to crawl onto his lap. She secretly loved how much she could make this Kurosawa squirm.

"Abandoning me so soon for a younger man, Koko? I'm hurt." The older man mock pouted.

"I'm sorry Yuta-sama. He just has all your charm but in a younger, and more robust body. I don't think I can resist him." She said, looking over her shoulder at him while doing her best 'sex kitten' face. It was a bit difficult to do as Lady had styled her hair so it was held back by a headband and sprayed to be very large. Also, the tight leather outfit did not make moving all that easy.

She and the older gentleman looked at each other for a moment. Then they both burst out laughing. Kyoko thought he was an ass who showed borderline sadistic fetishistic behaviour towards her, but in a weird way they were kind of friends.

"Who is _that_?" Fusao asked while he gazed in awe at the centre stage.

"Oh shit, Koko. You should have kept a closer eye on your rookie…" Lady said from where she was sitting on an adjoining blood red plush couch, straddling a young man who was comically small compared to her.

"You know her, Koko?" Yuta asked with mild interest. He clearly did not hold nearly the same amount of interest as his son did.

Rin, meanwhile on stage, looked like she was trying to 'play it cool'. Kyoko could see right through that, but she figured everyone else would be fooled well enough. But oh boy, there was going to be hell to pay later, for both of them. Girls frequently had to fight to get centre stage, and planned it months in advance. And this girl just walked up there on her first night.

Something that sounded like a techno remix of some sort of classical song started playing. She looked to the DJ booth and saw Tomi, Sango, and the DJ frantically gesturing and speaking in whispers to each other.

"Ladies and gentlemen, presenting to you our newest talent!" The DJ said in his characteristic "American radio show host announcer voice" that was overly proud of. He paused and started speaking in hushed tones again to his companions. He then pulled a face that Kyoko imagined was saying something along the lines of 'you have got to be shitting me'. "The girl whose name is to be determined, as far as we know!"

Kyoko had never felt humiliated by one of her rookies before, but there was a first time for everything. Usually she was just aggravated by them. Now she was both. And she was certain that Tomi was going to chew her out big over this. It wasn't her fault the newbie got lost in the dressing room or something like that! A small voice inside her head disagreed with her, but she chose to ignore it.

"Wow…" Fusao said with astonishment. Kyoko had to admit, of any new girl to be caught in this situation, it was a good thing it was Rin. She had incredible skills on the pole and knew how to use her flexibility to her advantage. At the very moment, she was holding herself up on the pole by grasping her foot behind her head and doing the splits so she looked like a ballerina. Kyoko was impressed; she wasn't flexible enough to do that. But she was still a lot better than her. Definitely.

"She has good moves, Koko. Do you think they're better than yours?" Ah, Suki Miyamoto. Another one of Kurosawa and Tomi's top business partners. She and her twin brother, Tsubasa, who looked nothing alike were sitting across from the Kurosawa couch. Suki had short, black spiked hair with a very angular face that made her look like a fox; she was tall, taller than Kyoko and has a very solid bone structure. She was the kind of woman who looked masculine from far away, but oddly beautiful if you saw her up close.

Her brother on the other hand did not have any such luck. He was very tall and very slender; quite gawky looking in Kyoko's opinion. Though he was in his early thirties, his face still retained a babyish quality to it and some acne. His light ginger hair and large auburn eyes, accentuated by his large thick Clarke-Kent style glasses made him look even younger. He could easily pass for a geeky fourteen year old, which he used to his advantage; no one ever suspected him of anything.

Kyoko always wished she could see a photo of what their parents looked like, just to see how they could have possibly made that combination.

"She has nothing on me." She said easily, though Rin was rotating expertly against the pole, legs high in the air in an inverted position and making something like a V with her body. Kyoko could see that it was difficult for Rin to hold that position while that was simple for her to do…mostly due to her magical abilities. _The advantages of selling your soul to the devil, I guess. _

At the end of the song, the centre stage was a miniature riot. A bunch of men, mostly new guys from what Kyoko assumed was a stag party were clamouring to give Rin small tips. She was a natural, sweet flirty smile and letting them stick money in her very tight and _very _revealing dress. After the commotion, she made eye contact with Kyoko and walked over.

* * *

Sayaka smiled in a way at Kyoko that looked sincere, but inside she was sneering. _You fucking bitch you left me in there! And it was so easy to get to the stage from there! What the hell?!_

"So, how was that sensei?" She said in a breathy, seductive voice. She had no idea who these people were, but she figured that being rude in front of clients would be a good way to get fired.

"It was amazing." A younger guy said. He was sitting next to a man with a brief case who looked like…his father? _Who goes with their Dad to a strip club?_

"How long have you been dancing for?" A woman sitting across from the young guy said. From afar, Sayaka had thought she was a man but up close, she could see that she was actually quite striking. _Maybe she looks so weird she looks good? _

"About six months now." She smiled pleasantly. _Am I supposed to flirt with her too? I guess she must be a lesbian or something. _

"That's it? We need to make our girls train more, Tsuba. If they can get that good that quick, we could make a lot more money offering supplemental services than we do." She said to a man next to her. He was downright odd looking. Sayaka assumed he was her husband. _She must be a pretty cool wife to bring her husband to a strip club. I guess this place is more of a family place than I'd guessed. They sound like they have their own club though, so maybe they're here for research? _

"Definitely. Did you have a coach?" He asked.

"No. I taught myself with lessons online." She lied. She had no idea how connected Mei was to the police force and figured it was better safe than sorry.

"Which videos?" Fox woman pressed.

"Art of Pole. You can download them." They were pretty good videos, but she had learned most of her more flexible moves from Mei. "I got a bit creative with some of the more flexible moves on my own, but she has a solid base. Do you run a club too?" She noticed Kyoko glaring at her out of the corner of her eye. _Am I not supposed to ask clients things to? I thought showing an interest in their lives was a good thing! _

All of the clients laughed. "Something like that." Fox face said.

"No touching the girls!" A large, muscular bouncer with a menacing appearance said to the tiny man Lady was sitting on. Surely enough, he was fondling her ass.

"But Lady's not a girl." He said with a smile and an American accent. Lady looked hurt. "She's aaaalllll woman." He then buried his head between her gargantuan breasts and rapidly shook his head, making a motorboat noise with his mouth. Lady laughed; it struck Sayaka as being very genuine. Kyoko watched them with disapproval.

"Save that for later. I don't want you to be the reason we get kicked out and can't get good wings here anymore." Fox lady snarked. _Oh, they're here for wings. Damn, are they that good? _

"So, uh, you're new here?" The young man asked, scooting over for Sayaka to take a seat. She smiled graciously and sat down.

"Yeah. This is my first shift. Do you come here a lot?"

"I started this week. I'm going to be coming by a lot more though. When do you work?"

"I'm not sure yet, but I really hope I'll see more of you." Truthfully she didn't care. He wasn't one of the ones she was trying to get. But, she figured any normal stripper would see him as a good potential regular, so she had to look like she was trying to get him.

She then felt herself getting smacked upside the head. Hard.

"Ow! What was that for?" She turned around the culprit; none other than Kyoko.

"Because you should be giving our handsome new friend here a proper welcome; don't you think?" She asked as she made a motion that resembled riding…something on the older man more than she would have liked it too. _She said it's not a brothel. It's just a strip club. And this is just a lap dance, so it's ok. Clients aren't allowed to touch the girls. _

She kept smiling and pulled herself onto his lap. He seemed like a nice enough guy. She slowly grinded against him, as Mei had taught her. She also stole a few tricks she had seen Kyoko and Lady doing on their partners. She tried to ignore the lustful look he was directing at her breasts as she moved up and down in the way Kyoko had done earlier.

She tried to ignore the way his fingers were starting to trace up her thighs.

She really had to try to ignore the way his fingers started to sneak up her skirt.

"Ah ah ahh." Kyoko playfully scolded. "No touching my kohai." She said as she pushed his hands down and pulled Sayaka's back to her chest. _Thank you! _

"I don't see why I can't. James has been fondling his over there since we got here."

"Lady wants him to."

"Who says she doesn't want me to?" He retorted, nodding his head towards Sayaka. She had never felt more like an object in her life.

"I'm not saying she doesn't. I'm saying I don't like to share." Kyoko smirked like a devil and bit at Sayaka's ear, discretely whispering "If you feel uncomfortable, you should leave right now, ok?"

"Do you two touch each other?" The loud tiny American asked with a grin.

"Maybe we do, maybe we don't." She loosened her grip on Sayaka, clearly giving this as a 'now is your chance to get out, so do it' gesture.

"Well go on then, touch your kohai, _Koko_." The woman said, with a particularly mocking tone on Kyoko's stage name. Sayaka wondered why she would do that. She noticed Kyoko's slight glare. _I think there's something going on here that I don't know about. _

"I'd pay to see that." The older man by Kyoko said.

"How much?" Lady butted in.

"200,000 yen for you girls to split?" He smirked. On one hand, Sayaka was grossed out by the thought of people watching this. On the other, holy hell that was a lot of money. She was starting to feel like these people might be good ones to keep an eye on.

"What do you say, kohai?" She said loud enough for everyone to hear. She leaned in close to her ear and whispered "Seriously, if you're uncomfortable, just leave now. It's alright."

"Do you want to do it? It's a lot of money…" Sayaka whispered back. She could feel a slight shrug against her back. "The money would be nice. I could probably make that much in tips on my own anyways though. It's more if you want to do it. I don't care."

Sayaka was silent and considered it. It was a _lot_ of money, and she bet it could get her a private room with these people, maybe find out more about them. She made up her mind, but had to look convincingly like a typical stripper about it.

"Do you think I would be able to make that much in tips on my own tonight?"

"Not a chance."

"Let's do it then."

"Alright, we'll do it." Kyoko said to the others. "But not here. We want a private room." _I love you Kyoko!_

"That can be arranged. Tomi!" The father signalled to the owner at the DJ booth.

Lady giggled as the tiny American whispered something in her ear.

"Would you two cut that out? I mean really, I don't want to see that." Fox lady snapped.

"Hey now Miyamoto, I don't get much time with my special lady. I need to cherish every moment." He responded. He proceeded to go back to whispering to her and groping her, which Sayaka could have sworn Kyoko said was not allowed. Kyoko stopped the younger guy from doing it to her.

"James, you're even making the stripper uncomfortable. And we're about to watch her get it on with Koko. Give it a rest or get a private room." She said while gesturing at Sayaka.

"I'm not uncomfortable! No, uh, it's fine! Really!" She laughed nervously. She cleared her throat to compose herself. "If one of our girls wants to show more affection, and receive affection from one of our patrons, that's perfectly fine with me." She said pleasantly. _Be polite. Be courteous. Be polite. Be courteous. _She repeated her mantra in her head.

"I'm sorry, I guess it is pretty rude to ignore our new friend, especially for the show we're about to see." He had a charming smile, but Sayaka could feel like there was something darker hidden in there. She was not concerned of any ill will being directed at her right now, per say, but she felt like he was….dangerous. She was really starting to regret agreeing to this. What was worse was she couldn't figure out which thing she agreed to was the thing she was regretting; maybe all of them. In any case, she was starting to feel like she was getting in over her head.

Actually, she felt like a most of the people around this table were pretty dangerous and she had no idea why. Well, maybe not baby face.

"So do you actually not have a name?"

Sayaka laughed, a bit of discomfort evident in her voice. "I have a real name, but I don't have a stage name yet."

"So what's your real name?" The American asked.

"I'm…not sure if I'm supposed to say that." She replied honestly.

"Oh, come on. What's the worst that could happen? I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours." He coaxed. Sayaka looked to Kyoko for guidance. Her face was unreadable.

"I'm Yamasaki Rin." She said quietly with a smile and slight bow. The American laughed.

"So polite! Nice you meet you Rinny." _Rinny?_ "I'm Watanabe James. These here are some of my colleagues Miyamoto Suki and Miyamoto Tsubasa. On my other side are Kurosawa Yuta and Kurosawa Fusao."

"What the fuck are you doing?" Suki snapped. James held up his hand to silence her. Sayaka noticed that everyone looked very tense right now. _Why? _

"Tell me, Rinny. Did you know our names already?" He asked with a smile. Sayaka was incredibly confused.

"No, I'm sorry. Should I have asked Kyoko first?" She looked at Kyoko and whispered "Was I supposed to ask you first?" Kyoko quickly shook her head. The American laughed again, loud and boisterously.

"Fair enough, fair enough. She's telling the truth on that. Now, I want to watch that private show…"

* * *

Kyoko had no idea what that was about, but she didn't like it. James was a very cautious man, more than he let off, and generally had a good idea of who to trust and who not to. It seemed like he decided to trust Rin, which she guessed was good. She was more concerned as to why he didn't feel he could trust her in the first place. _Is he picking up on something I didn't? _She had gotten weird feeling from her, to be honest.

Tomi quickly got a private room arranged, paid by James. Part of her didn't want to do this in front of them, especially since it was obvious that at least the Miyamotos were doing this to mock her for being a stripper. They had been upset with her ever since she refused to leave Tomi's and work as a permanent staff for them full-time. Kyoko simply hadn't wanted to take that risk, and she despised their business. In turn, they tortured her at work.

But, on the other hand, she hadn't gotten to have any sort of sex in ages. She wasn't going to pretend she had anyone she was even remotely interested in sleeping with, but she hadn't even had a chance to _masturbate _for fuck's sakes. She and Yuma share a bed, and Yuma usually goes to bed before her. And she would _never _want Yuma to catch her doing anything like that _ever_. Plus, Rin was cute enough. And most importantly, she had lied to her about how much she would get in tips; 100,000 yen for what was probably going to be a 20 or 30 minute show was actually really good, even by her standards. That would cover most of Yuma's trip to New York too, if she had anything to say about it.

Also, the most important point that drove her crazy was that she needed them more than they needed her. She was the best at what she did, but there were still others who could do comparable jobs. Maybe even for cheaper than her. She didn't want to risk pissing them off and losing her top contract clients. It was by far where most of her money came from, whether it was directly from contracts or indirectly from the overly generous tips.

The room was quite small; not designed to have this many people. The small stage would have easily accommodated two people, but the pole right in the middle made things a bit awkward. The only thing more awkward than the pole in the middle was the blonde girl on the stage who was trying to figure out what she was supposed to do. _This was a bad idea. _

"You can go, Rin."

"Wh-what? Why?" She asked, trying to act less terrified than she was. _This is a disaster in the making. _

"Yeah, why?" Fusao asked.

"Just make her a bit more comfortable and it'll be fine, Koko-chan." James taunted. He had been mostly raised in countries other than Japan, so he had never used honorifics growing up. He only used them here if he wanted to make some sort of point.

"I can put on a show with Koko, just fine." Lady stepped in. The three strippers formed a circle on the stage.

"Really, you should go. You're clearly uncomfortable with this, and it was a bad idea for me to let them push so much on you so soon. It's fine that you can't do it, ok? It won't be a big deal if you just leave now." Kyoko hated trying to be reassuring; she felt like she was really bad at it. She could handle Yuma, mostly because she knew everything there was to know about her. But other people? Kyoko didn't need them, so she never bothered to try to figure them out. Which made this really, really difficult.

"She's telling the truth, really. I can do something with her; we do shows like this for them a lot. Don't feel bad, it's completely understandable." Lady smiled gently and genuinely. Lady turned to the spectators.

"Alright, sorry folks, we're not getting a show from these two, but if it's satisfactory Koko and I can-"

"EE!" Kyoko shrieked in a way that was more girly than she would like to admit she could shriek. But she really was not expecting Rin to grab her and force her down beneath her.

"Don't. Tell. Me. What. I. Can't. Do." She growled at her. Kyoko wouldn't have even expected this front the blonde. She was so used to being the authoritarian that it was odd, almost exciting to be on the other side of it. She could feel a familiar dull throb growing with intensity between her thighs; something she hadn't felt for a long time. And honestly, she had missed it.

The dominating rookie quickly lost her edge. She looked down at her pinned mentor beneath her, sort of asking for guidance with her eyes. Kyoko rolled her own (_fucking rookies_), before quickly flipping them over.

"Fair enough, _kohai_, but don't expect me to lay back and let you do as you please." She smirked in her trademark devilishly seductive way. Years of practice perfected it, and it got people, men and women riled up every time. It certainly made the younger girl beneath her squirm a bit. She liked how all it took was a look to make her aroused.

While it was exciting to be on the submissive side every once in a while, she couldn't deny that she was more comfortable being in control. She _loved _the feeling of having that power over somebody else. She liked the control, and she loved feeling like the alpha; it didn't happen often enough anymore. She especially loved when they _begged _her to give them what they wanted. And this girl was going to beg tonight.

She leaned down to kiss her, but she knew their audience; they wouldn't be interested in anything lovey-dovey. They wanted rough and hard, a demand she was happy to oblige. The kiss was more like bites with occasionally licks, just the way she liked it. The only thing more delicious than being in charge was the way she would catch her student's gasps and light mewls with her lips.

She let her hands explore the body beneath her. The girl clearly worked out, having slight definition in her abs, but otherwise she was soft, slightly malleable. Kyoko had wondered what her body would feel like when she had first seen her dance that afternoon; she had no idea her curiosity would be satisfied so quickly. But, Kyoko was never a patient person so she wasn't complaining in the slightest.

It made her relieved to feel her partner relaxing a bit. Her body was no longer as rigid and felt more like it was melting against her and the floor. Her student's hands were starting to do some roaming of their own, particularly grabbing at the mass of red hair above her and nails scratching any skin that happened to be in their way. Her open legs were wrapping themselves around Kyoko's torso, keeping her where they decided she belonged. Yeah, Kyoko was way happier with this.

"The safe word is stop." She whispered to Rin, whose face was flushed as she writhed beneath her. She went to start kissing, sucking, and nipping along her jaw line.

"That's not very creative."

"Fine, what do you propose then?" She asked with a bit of aggravation in her voice. She was more focused on more important matters at hand, and if Rin wasn't then she clearly wasn't doing her job. She grinded her pelvis against that of the girl's beneath her and heard her let out a soft groan.

"It doesn't matter, that's fine." She breathed out. _That's better_. As a reward, she started to suck on her neck. It was exhilarating being here; almost predatory. She also knew that the neck was an underappreciated part of the human body during foreplay. There was something about the vulnerability of having someone else at your neck, someone who could do anything they wanted to you, that was always exciting.

"Can I take your dress off?" She kissed a particularly harshly made love bite, only partially caring if the act soothed it at all.

"You can take it off." She responded, eyes glazed over as she stared at the ceiling. Kyoko nodded, hands coming underneath the girl's raised legs to grasp at the bottom of the skirt that had already ridden up over the course of their actions. The way Rin used her legs against Kyoko's lower back to push herself off the ground, thereby letting Kyoko get her dress off was strangely arousing to the red head. She casually flung the dress onto the ground beneath the stage. It was odd how even though it was such a see-through dress, the blonde looked much more naked now.

"Stars on or off?" She asked while kneading the breasts that had said starfish pasties stuck on. She moved back down to suck and bite at her neck. It was an empowering feeling to hear and feel the girl sucking in a breath.

"On." The red head nodded in understanding as she continued to stimulate the nerves in the girl's neck. She figured there might not be as much point in playing with the breasts that comfortably filled her hands; she couldn't get to the nipples, the most sensitive part after all. But the audience that had been deathly silent for the last five minutes would probably want her to play with them anyways. Which of course was the only reason Kyoko continued her ministrations there.

She finally started to move her mouth downwards, playing with the small areas of skin between the arms of the starfish that covered her. _Might as well get as close as possible. _She could feel the girl's pulse racing when her finger tips grazed over certain parts of her. _Or is that mine? _

She continued her descent downwards, down to the place that would make the girl scream. She had already moved from heavy breaths to adorably soft whimpers. But she wasn't going to stay adorable much longer; not if Kyoko had any say in this.

She lightly traced her fingers up the girl's thighs, slowly but surely getting closer to the base of her core. From this angle, she could already tell that her foreplay had been pretty good. She always got this reaction, but it still boosted her pride. She had learned from one of the best; her first show partner at the club who quit a long time ago.

This trick was a classic. When you finally get your fingers to the panties, you sneak a finger or two into them from underneath, maybe "accidentally" sneaking them inside as you pull the fabric down. It always got a delicious reaction of some sort. She heard Rin let out a shaky breath that neither of them knew she was even holding.

Kyoko sat up on her knees with Rin's legs over her shoulders. She carelessly threw the blue thong behind her, returning her hand to where it had been. Her middle and ring finger slid into the wet folds, seeking the little bump that she knew would drive the new girl crazy. It didn't take long to find it; she could swear she could feel it throbbing. But that might have just been her prideful imagination talking.

Placing the two fingers on either side of it, she started to rub in little circles; slowly at first, but quickly speeding up. She used her other hand to rub the leg hoisted over her shoulder, kissing and nipping at the pale smooth skin of her inner thigh. Things were starting to get heated, and she could see the girl's abs starting to tense. She wasn't on the brink yet, but she was getting there.

It was the worst possible moment for the door to slam open.

"Sorry I was late, I couldn't find you. I didn't realize you would find a room so fa…." The intruder's sentence stopped as he noticed the spectacle before him.

"What's happening here?" He asked with a lecherous grin.

* * *

Sayaka had no idea what was going on but she didn't like it. It had been good; _so _good. Kyoko clearly knew more about how the female body worked than her ex did. She was pretty sure this was going to be the first time someone else had made her cum with her help. She had even managed to ignore the small audience watching her easily enough. Until that asshole barged in.

"Shut _up _Megumi and sit down." The older Kurosawa snapped. _Megumi? _

Sayaka looked over, and surely enough there was one of her targets, leering at her. Her first thought was that she really wished she had more clothes on, hands instinctively reaching up to cover what little was already covering her breasts. Her second thought was that this clearly proved that these people were dangerous. Ryo would want to know about this.

Sayaka found Megumi repulsive immediately. He was about her height, slim build, but had the face of a rat; narrow jaw, pointed nose, and teeth that were way too large for his face. And he looked like he hadn't had a shower in ten days. He looked exactly like his mug shot. It made sense that he looked that dirty though; he was a drug dealer and distributor who hung around in the darkest corners of town. As a matter of fact, some of the best stuff she had ever bought had been sourced by him.

"Sorry sir." Megumi quickly and quietly apologized before sitting down next to Fusao. _Sir? _Megumi clearly seemed like a subordinate. _Holy shit, I think I might have struck gold here. _

She glanced back up at Kyoko who looked very annoyed with their newest guest. The teacher looked back down at the girl, and her face softened instantly.

"So, where were we?" She asked as her face slid back into that mischievous, sexy smirk she pulled off effortlessly. Sayaka wished she could pull that off. But it was sexy as hell and directed at her so she really didn't care.

The beautiful redhead returned her lips to hers, tongue sliding in to dance with hers. _She's trying to get me back in the mood._ Sayaka sort of appreciated it, but it also drove her nuts. She had to be able to focus on the other people in the room, dammit!

"Megumi, you're going to be at the harbour on Tuesday night, yes?" James asked. Sayaka made the mistake of opening her eyes slightly to glance in his direction. His eyes seemed glazed over as he stared at Sayaka and Kyoko in the middle of the room, mouth agape. Lady was between his legs, head bobbing up and down. _Gross! I thought that wasn't allowed! _

"Definitely. Old Town, right?"

"Would you two _shut the fuck up_?" Suki snapped. _No, don't shut up, this is great! _

"Important business matters, we need to get them out of the way. Just because you're fine with picking up scraps on the streets, doesn't mean everyone here is. International logistics take careful planning. You would _know _that if you had accepted any of my business propositions." James snapped back at her, equally irritated. "Fuck yeah, keep doing that." He said quietly to Lady, eyes closing. Sayaka meanwhile was memorizing every word while trying to make it convincing to the girl on top of her that she was focusing on their current activities.

"Oh fuck off."

"Why don't you all shut up? Now, please." The older Kurosawa asked calmly and politely.

"Can I put my fingers in?" Kyoko whispered to her. She appreciated the constant requests for consent; it was way better than the alternative. She hated appearing this submissive in front of all of these people that. She quickly nodded her head. Sayaka wasn't even sure she could speak if she wanted to.

Kyoko started to kiss her neck again (_Holy hell, this girl really has a thing for necks_) as she put two fingers inside. Kyoko had long, slender fingers, she noted internally. _No pun intended. _

They were the perfect length, combined with Kyoko's obvious experience to reach that spot inside her that seemed to be connect to the same nerve centre that her clit did. Kyoko's mouth started to migrate back down south, following the same sort of pattern as before. It had riled her up before, and it riled her up even more now when it was combined with her quickening pumping hand motions.

Even though she had felt the other girl's mouth moving down on her, it surprised her when she felt a warm, velvety tongue join the fingers that were working her body. Sayaka could tell from all of the stimulation she was getting that it must be fairly awkward for Kyoko, having her hand moving so quickly so close to her face. Her ex always looked like he had more finesse from afar, but oh _god _it never felt anything like this.

She noticed, when she had enough active brain cells to think about it, that the tongue playing down there didn't seem to have any sort of pattern. Kyoko kept changing it. It still felt great though.

Suddenly, one move in particular, something that felt like her tongue was moving in and out quickly made Sayaka's toes curl. That combined with the three fingers (_When did that happen?_) made her shiver and let out some kind of noise she wished she didn't make.

And then Kyoko did it again. And again. And again.

"Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god! Please! _Ah!_" She was getting really, really close. Kyoko went faster, with the same action. It was a lot. It was so much. It was too much. Sayaka could feel the pressure building up in her core, reaching a peak.

"_AH!" S_he felt it explode, melting inside her legs and stomach. But it wasn't stopping. She had never felt anything like this, it just keep going. She was pretty sure she was shaking. Kyoko didn't stop moving or doing that _thing _with her tongue. She could feel that peak of pressure stubbornly staying here, longer than it ever had before. Usually it would go away after a second or two, but this was one felt like…_wow. _

It finally let go, strong pulses of pleasure flowing through her. She was so glad that Kyoko pulled away when she did, because it was starting to become painful. When she finally refocused herself, she could hear and feel how hard she was breathing.

Her high was broken when she heard the rest of the room cheer. Suddenly, the red that coloured her cheeks wasn't from arousal but humiliation and shame. Kyoko seemed to be able to read her like an open book.

"You did great. Are you ok?" She asked as she pulled Sayaka in for a hug. It was a small gesture, but Sayaka really, really appreciated it. It helped keep her from crying. She nodded against the leather outfit and hugged her back tightly.

"Aaawww, is she embarrassed now? That's so precious." James taunted. Lady looked towards them, a bit of white liquid in her hair that Sayaka wished she hadn't noticed.

"Precious? Hey, Koko, Rin, what do you think of that stage name?"

"That's obnoxious." Sayaka protested against Kyoko's shoulder.

"That's perfect." Koko grinned back.

"Um, sorry, excuse me, Koko?" A meek-looking girl squeaked from the doorway. She had a medium build, wore dull colours, had dull glasses, and dull black straight hair. She looked completely and utterly dull; very inconspicuous. _When the hell did she get here?! _

"What can I do for you Sango?" Kyoko asked.

"Tomi would like to see you in his office when you have a chance." She said quietly. She also had a flush on her cheeks. _Oh god, how much did she see? _

"Got it. I'll be there in a few minutes."

"He also asked me to apologize to you and Rin about the stage mix-up."

"Huh?" Sayaka asked. _That was completely mine and Kyoko's fault. _

"Oh, you know, scheduling you for the first night before explaining how the stage worked? That was a mistake on my part. It was supposed to be Nuna going up tonight, but I guess I accidentally wrote 'new'. I get things like that messed up all the time." She smiled politely. _Did she cover for us?_

"I don't know why Tomi puts up with you." Yuta said with scathing honesty. If Sango was hurt, she didn't show it.

"I'm lucky he's a very nice man." She said softly. Sayaka felt terrible.

"Honestly, that's not what happened, I-" Sayaka started. Kyoko shushed her.

"It wasn't a problem at all, Sango. Rin is much more talented than Nuna anyways, so it was a good thing for the club that she went up." Kyoko said convincingly truthfully. Sayaka made a mental note that Kyoko was a skilled liar.

Sango nodded, and left.

* * *

This had been a productive evening for Kyoko. She made more generous tips from staying with the others in the private room that James had rented for the night. After the show, they just spoke about more casual things such as news, gossip ("strategizing" as Yuta called it), and general bitching about things. She also ate about half of their chicken wings.

After Rin had her clothes back on and calmed down a bit, Kyoko started to make fun of her, to the great amusement of everyone.

"So, you're an 'M', huh?"

"What are you talking about?" Rin said in a way that implied that she did not really want to know what she was talking about.

"You know. 'A'" She stuck her tongue out of her mouth and moved it in the shape of a miniscule a. "'B'" She did the same for a miniscule B. "And you're an 'M'." She smirked. Rin was beet red. Everyone, aside from Fusao who lightly blushed thought it was hilarious.

"That might be good to know for later, eh Fusao? I've seen the way you've been eyeing Precious up all night." James joked to the younger Kurosawa. His face became just as red as Rin's.

"I'm gonna go see the boss. Be back in a few. Save me some wings." She decided she was out of stripper mode for a bit. No one seemed to mind. She got a non-committal grunt from somebody to indicate that they heard her. Otherwise, only Rin seemed to show any sign of caring that she was leaving.

Kyoko wasn't sure how to feel about being called to Tomi's office. She could be in trouble if Sango lied about thinking she messed up. She doubted that was the case, since in general the scatterbrained girl was an honest one; horribly suited for being a personal assistant, but honest.

Tomi's office was hidden on the second floor amongst the private rooms. You wouldn't guess that his office was actually an office until you went in. Heck, even inside the office you couldn't really tell. All it had was a desk with nothing on it, and nothing in the drawers. He kept all of this records hidden somewhere else.

"What can I do for you, boss?" Kyoko said as she closed the door.

"I was wondering if you had any time to do a grocery run this evening?" He said casually. It was the other alternative. He had a contract for her.

"Oh yeah? What do you need?"

"I need you to pick up some more scotch." _He needs me to hide a body. _

"Any preference from where?"

"The store in the industrial area near the docks, if you could. I'd like the bottles that come in the orange box." She hated the fucking riddles he sometimes used; it had happened more than once where she couldn't figure out what the hell he was talking about. Tomi was paranoid of wires, which she didn't mind. The fewer people who could find out about her other jobs, the better. In this case, she assumed he was talking about an orange storage container based on the location: docks in the industrial area."

"Any preference for what flavour or age?"

"Preferable something sweet." _Woman's body_. "I don't want anything too old or expensive. Maybe something around twenty or thirty years old? That would be good enough for our patrons, I'm sure." _A woman between the ages of twenty and thirty. _

"I think I can pick that up. I'm short on cash though. Would you be able to spot me some to pick it up?"

"Of course, Kyoko." He smiled pleasantly, handing her a small backpack that looked quite full. _This was a very productive night. _

* * *

This had been a productive evening for Sayaka. She found one of her main targets on the first night, and suspected that she found even bigger ones. She couldn't wait to tell her boss tomorrow morning!

"So, Rin, was it really as good as it looked?" Suki asked. Sayaka decided that she didn't care if she had to put up with this. These were clearly some bad people and she wanted to be the one to get them behind bars!

"How good did it look?" She asked coyly.

"Pretty damn good. I'm wondering how much I'd have to pay to get her to do that to me." She grinned. Her brother made a face, but otherwise ignored it.

"Do you want to put on a show with her when she comes back, Suki-san?" James joked. "I'll pay Koko's charges if you do, as long as I get a front row seat!" Suki threw a chicken bone at him.

"Oh shut it."

"Speaking of paying, Kurosawa-sama…"

"What is the shipment on Tuesday?" He asked uninterestedly.

"Fifty pounds of pure Sunshine snow. Straight from our favourite Filipino friend." Sunshine snow…Sayaka had heard of that. It was a new, refined type of cocaine that was tearing its way through the streets of Japan. Sources said it was just as good as Colombian, but cheaper.

"60,000,000 yen should cover it, yes?"

"Make it 65,000,000 for shipping and handling on my part. I have to maintain a lot of connections for you, you know." Yuta looked displeased. James stood his ground.

"Fine. I was prepared for that anyways." He said as passed the brief case over. _That is so cliché. _

"You play it old school don't you, Kurosawa?" James asked unimpressed, briefly glancing through the case on his lap and fanning out the stacks to make sure they were all there.

"Never underestimate the value of the classics Watanabe. They are classics for a reason, after all."

Meanwhile, the figurative pen and notebook in Sayaka's head was racing to collect all of this information. Her superiors didn't have her wear a wire of any sort tonight since they figured she wouldn't find anything on her first night. That, and they heard that Tomi was paranoid about rats and undercover agents coming in, so everyone was subject to random searches. Kyoko hadn't mentioned it, now that Sayaka thought about it; maybe it was so she could be caught off guard? Sayaka figured there wasn't much value in thinking about it too much.

Her four hour shift ended faster than she thought it would. After the show at the beginning, no one really demanded anything else of her. In fact, she got to eat some of Tomi's famous chicken wings with them, which weren't as good as she was expecting.

"How was your first shift Yamasaki-san?" Sango asked in the dressing room. Sayaka jumped about a foot in the air, not expecting the girl behind her.

"Ah, it was good! Really good, thank you. And thank you so much for covering for us. I can't believe I walked right out on stage like that. Was anybody mad?" She was concerned. People had to like her.

"They're mad, but not at you. Don't worry Yamasaki-san."

"You can just call me Rin, it's fine. I'm sorry, I don't think I remember your name."

"Oh, Sango is fine. I'm not one for using nicknames, if you don't mind." _Huh? _

"Um, sure, that's fine. One of the clients today started calling me Rinny. I didn't like it. I guess I'm not a fan of nicknames either." Sango smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.

"Yes, that one's a bit eccentric." She quickly looked around behind her, before pulling Sayaka into one of the costume closets and shutting the door. Sayaka was pressed tightly against her chest. Sayaka had no idea what was going on.

"Listen to me, and listen to me very closely, alright?" She whispered harshly. Sayaka just nodded dumbly. She realized that it was pitch black, so the girl probably couldn't even see her.

"Those clients you were with tonight aren't regular people. They're bad. They're _dangerous_. They've done horrible things to some of the girls here before. I thought it was terrible when I found out Kyoko was your mentor because she spends most of her time with them. There's a reason for that. She can handle clients like that. She's probably the only one that can. They don't try to mess with her. But if you're with them and she's not there…terrible things might happen to you. So _don't _service those clients, no matter how well they tip. It won't be worth it. Do you understand?"

Sayaka was speechless. She just nodded again, fully aware that the other girl warning her might not be able to see her. A light flicked on.

"Is everything ok in here?" Kyoko asked skeptically, looking between the two. _Oh shit. _

"Yes. We were just talking about the possibility of Rin giving some of the new girls pole dancing classes. We just didn't want to talk about it in front of everyone else." _She's a fast thinker._

"Why the hell should she do it? I'm way better than she is." Kyoko snapped haughtily.

"I thought you hated teaching. I'm sorry I hadn't thought to consider you." She said quietly and pleasantly. "And Tomi said he thought you were too busy."

"Well tell him to ask me before he decides if I'm too busy or not. And ask me before you decide if I'm interested or not."

"Are you interested?"

"No, but that's not the point! Ah, fuck it." Kyoko began to storm off but stopped before turning around.

"I also wanted to ask. Rin, are you good with working as a double act more often? I lied about getting that much money in tips regularly. That's actually really good money. I also think Kurosawa's son really liked you. He would be a good regular for you. I can't handle both him and his father; that would be weird."

"Uh, yeah, sure! I'm free pretty much any night except Thursdays and Saturdays, if that's ok." She quickly glanced at Sango who kept a blank face. "Only if that's possible, of course."

"We can work around that. Most girls want the Saturday shift, so that won't be too hard to avoid." Sayaka should have felt guilty for trying to get out of duty to keep her regular Saturday night movie and hang out with Hitomi and Kyousuke. But at the same time, they had done it for years and she loved it; it was just good work-life balance, you know?

"Can you put her on for Friday? I could use her for the double act." Kyoko interjected. Sango agreed. Kyoko nodded and then turned around and stormed off. Or maybe that was just how she walked.

"You're going to regret that." Sango warned. Sayaka shrugged.

"I need the money." She lied. "But I do appreciate you looking out for me, really. It's nice to have a friend here." She smiled, honestly. She could see a small smile forming on Sango's face too. _Does she not have many friends here? _"Also, you're good at thinking fast." Sayaka complimented.

"Not really. I'd been planning for that conversation for the last two hours. Another thing I wanted to warn you about: your mentor has a bit of a temper on her." _

* * *

Kyoko picked up her phone and called Yuma immediately. Yuma _might _send a text or two every once in a blue moon. She was going through that annoying rebellious stage right now. But 8 texts and a voicemail? Last time she got that many messages, Yuma had set the curtains on fire with the popcorn maker; she still had no idea how that happened. _If that brat burned the fucking kitchen down, so help me God…_

"Aneki-chan! Are you off work now?"

"Yeah, I'm off. Is the kitchen ok?"

"Uh... yeah, it's fine?" Yuma said, confusion evident in her voice.

"Ok great. What's going on? Are you at home?"

"No, I'm in the industrial district, outside the good ramen store." That was a great ramen store. Started up by one of the former Mitakihara residents, so it never reminded her of anything. "Remember that familiar from two weeks ago? The one with the creepy doll face on one side of the head and the skull on the other?"

"Ah yeah. Did it grow up?"

"Pfft, not only that. It grew up and some new girl tried taking it on without cleaning her soul gem before, from the looks of it. We've got a barrier with two witches, both pretty strong. I didn't think I could take them on my own. Can you come over here and we can get some ramen after?"

Kyoko grinned. "You got it, kiddo. Uhh, wait, you're in the industrial district, right? Where are the witches, exactly?"

"Near the ports right now. I didn't want to get too close in case they went after magical girls like that one from a few year ago did. Why?" Oh, this was too perfect. Christmas was coming early this year!

"I got a contract to do in that area; we can get two birds with one stone. We're gonna make it rain tonight!"

* * *

Sayaka picked up her phone and called Kyousuke immediately after she snuck out and got out of costume. She got messages from him all the time, but 15 texts and 4 voicemails weren't normal. And it was weird as hell that he wouldn't say exactly what was going on. She listened to the familiar ring intently, pacing back and forth quickly, agitated. _Pick up, pick up, pick up. _

"Sayaka! Thank you so much for calling. Where were you?" He asked with evident relief in his voice.

"Sorry, I was working tonight. What's wrong? Are you ok?"

"Yea-No, No I'm not ok. Sayaka I need you to come over right now, please!" Sayaka's protective instincts went into overdrive.

"Wait right there! I'll call some of the squad, we'll be there right away! Don't move. Are you in danger?" Her authoritative cop voice was something she still wasn't used to hearing herself, but it was gradually becoming more and more a basic part of her character.

"No! Sayaka you don't need to call your friends from work; it's nothing like that. Please just come over, by yourself. It's more of a personal matter between friends, ok? Nothing illegal. Please just….just come over right now…" His pleading voice never ceased to soften her. She sighed, relenting.

"Ok, ok. Just…wait there. I can be there in twenty minutes."

"Thank you, Sayaka." Something about the way she could hear his smile through his voice over the phone always made her heart twinge a bit in pain.

* * *

The door to the rusty orange train cart creaked open. Thankfully, it was still cold out so the body hadn't decomposed much. Had it been summer, this would have been a disgusting, disgusting job.

"Aneki-chan! What are you doing!? We need to go before it gets away!" Yuma yelled near the opening of the barrier. It was pulsing with an angry, negative energy; the dark emotions of the magical girls the witches had spawned from creating a thick miasma of despair.

"Hang on a goddamn minute!" She yelled as she hoisted the woman's body over her shoulder. She was quite petite, even though her overly large breast implants felt awkward against her back. This was exactly why she hoped she would never fall in love. Those corny love songs weren't lying about it killing you. Kyoko was sure the songs must have meant the heartache would do it, but a hammer to the head would work too. This woman might have just been a hooker though.

"Is there anyone out there? Any security cameras?" A moment after she said that, she felt a sonic wave.

"Not anymore. Coast is clear. Now let's GO!"

Kyoko literally trusted Yuma with her life, but she still looked all directions anyways before exiting the crate. There really was no one around.

"Great, let's go in now. " She said, running towards the entrance. She had never seen a witch's kiss like it. It was green and purple with an insignia that just looked like it didn't fit together at all; clearly a side effect of the two witches cohabiting the barrier.

"Who is she?" Yuma asked hesitantly, pointing to the woman Kyoko was carrying unceremoniously. Making bodies "disappear" was one of Kyoko's more common jobs, but she never did one with Yuma. She was doing all of this so the girl could have a normal life, after all.

"Some broad. Don't worry about it, don't look at it. You ready for this?" Yuma nodded, eyes still focused on the petite woman's head, where the short black hair seemed to be matted with blood and the skull caved in. She had seen worse, and Kyoko knew that, but it didn't make this any more pleasant to see.

The two ran into the barrier, seeing the strangest conglomeration of familiars they had ever encountered. The familiars of the two witches seemed to have combined, leading to doll and skull-faced insects with fairy wings. That didn't even compare to the barrier; a formerly perfect, gothic dollhouse that was now arranged as something like a beehive; each tunnel like a different room. Kyoko jumped into one that looked like a bedroom and lay the body there, closing the deceased woman's eyes. A sentimental part of her decided to lay the emerald flowers on the bedside table on her chest, nestled between the silicon with her cold, pale hands crossed on top of them. She heard Yuma jump up behind her, but didn't move to acknowledge her. She wouldn't let her guard down, but she wanted to have a brief moment of silence if she could.

"Do you like doing this, onee-chan?" She whispered. Kyoko didn't say anything, but after a moment simply shook her head. She could see her soul gem darken a bit. This was not the place to mourn or reflect on poor life choices.

"Let's go kill some witches."

* * *

The door to Kyousuke's apartment creaked open. He really needed to put some W40 on those hinges or whatever that thing was called. Some of the guys at work seemed like the burly manly-man types who would know; not a crippled former classical musician though.

"Sayaka! Thank you so much for coming." He gave that beautiful, friendly smile that would always only be friendly. Sayaka ran to the designer baby blue couch his parents had ordered for him. It was neat in that the arm rest had something like a plush hook that Kyousuke could use to push it up. He could then push himself out of the wheel chair and onto the couch, then pull it back down. All of his furniture was cleverly accessible like that, so he could look like he lived as normal a life as possible.

"Yeah, of course! What's wrong though? Are you alright?" She said, looking at both sides of his face, ready to do any first aid."

"Yeah, I'm fine…it's not me who's in trouble." The concern on Sayaka's face immediately came off, replaced by a look of pure fury.

"No. No. Not this again. Not this a-fucking-gain. How many times do I have to go over this with you?!" She screamed.

"He'll talk to you! Please, his parents are freaking out. He hasn't called in over a week, they're worried he's in trouble or…." He couldn't even finish that thought.

"And you know what? That's too bad, it really is. But that comes with the lifestyle. Believe it or not, I would know!" Her last sentence was meant to be a passive aggressive snark, but the volume simply made it frightening.

"Come on, you don't need to go see him or anything. Just call him, make sure he's…alive. His parents are scared….I'm scared. Please, you're the only one he'd talk to."

"Kyousuke, please listen to me. I don't think you understand. He's…he's what we call a bad tie in rehab. He connects me to my old life and he _actively _tries to get me back into it. And…and you don't know." Her voice cracked. "You don't know how hard it is to stay away when it's right in front of me. It's not like being a diet and trying to not eat a piece of cake that's in front of you, ok? It takes way more than discipline. It would be like not eating for a month, and being told that a decadent, beautiful….incredible piece of your favourite kind of cake being offered to you is laced with arsenic. But you wouldn't even be able to taste it…it's like you wouldn't know it was there. And it's so hard to remind yourself that it's not worth it."

She was trying not to cry. The anger in her voice was gone.

"Sayaka, I get it; you have had a difficult time healing. I have too. My accident was over six years ago and I lost the ability to do what I was most passionate about. Healing is not easy, but the only way to fully do it is by facing it. So this would be good for you!"

"What? No! What you and I went through is completely different!" Sayaka said flabbergasted. "Healing is hard for both of us, but in completely different ways. Spending time with me isn't going to make you any less able to walk because you can't anyways!"

"You're right; I can't." He said with a deadpan expression; Sayaka cringed.

"Look, I'm sorry. I don't get what you're going through, and you don't get what I'm going through. I guess…I guess the best way to look at it is like…ugh" she had no idea how to explain it without hurting him more, or throwing it in his face that could never walk again.

"You've been clean for two years, Sayaka. You make yourself sound like you're some weakling with no will whatsoever. You're not! I know you can talk to him. I even think that you could save his life as long as you actually believed that weren't powerless like that program tells you. What happened to being a hero like you always wanted to be?" _Ouch. _

"I gave up on that a long time ago."

"Why?"

"You know damn well why! Just because you weren't there doesn't mean it didn't happen!" She actively blocked out the memories of Mitakihara Middle School. After the night she had just had, she couldn't deal with this.

"Listen, I've had a really, really long day. You have no idea. I can't do this right now. I'm sure he's fine. If he's not…well there's nothing we can do about that." She said.

"Don't you care about him at all? The four of us have been best friends for six years, and you dated him for over a year!"

"I don't think getting high with someone and screwing them counts as dating." _Even though I do call him my ex._

"Well, it did for him. That means something; that _has _to mean something. Are you completely heartless, Sayaka? You don't sound like the girl I've been best friends with since we were kids at all." She hated that puppy-dog look. She despised it. It was adorable when it was about other things, but not this. He knew how to play her like a fiddle.

"Fine. Fine. I don't care. Give me your phone and I'll call his place."

"I think he'd be more likely to answer it if were from your phone."

"I'm already calling him for you, be happy with that. I don't want his number on my phone, and I don't want him to have mine. He's still a bad tie and I don't want us to be connected in any way."

"You can't be serious…" Kyousuke more said to himself. Nevertheless, he took out his phone. Sayaka quickly found his name in the contacts and pressed "Call."

It rang. And rang. And rang. It went to the standard voicemail; the lady with the Tokyo accent saying that this customer was not available. "Please leave a message after the beep." It beeped.

"Hey. It's Sayaka. People think you're dead. If you call back in the next two minutes, you'll talk to me. Bye." She hung up. The room was silent for a painfully awkward moment.

"That…really? That's it? He's not going to call back to that!" Kyousuke exclaimed. However, he was quickly proved wrong as the phone started buzzing immediately, "Nakazawa" displaying on caller ID. Sayaka would have been smug, but this was nothing to be smug about. She answered, as she said she would in the message.

"Saaaayyyyyaaaakkkkaaaaa, I miss you! Where have you been?" He said in that tone that he always had when he was high out of his mind; probably heroine, their old favourite, but it could have been cocaine. Maybe even sunshine snow…

"I've been working. The important question is where the hell have you been? Everyone's been freaking out."

"Have you?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?" Nakazawa laughed.

"Playing stone cold as ever. I can see right through you, you know. You don't need to play tough with me. I accept you for everything you are. You used to accept me too. Why don't you accept me anymore, Sayaka?"

"Because I'm not fucked up on drugs anymore, and you wouldn't 'accept' the way you are now either if you weren't."

"So proud, Miss Rehabilitated. Whatever, I don't want to fight; you're hashing my buzz. Are you going to come over, or what?"

"How can I come over if I don't know where you are?"

"I'm at my place."

"Your place….you're at your apartment? That one you've been living in for the last 10 months?" She said, voice rising in volume and frustration while looking eyes with Kyousuke.

"Yeah, I've been here all week. Found some wicked shows on Netflix. Come over." _Are you fucking kidding me? _

"Did you check his apartment?" She asked Kyousuke. He looked sheepish.

"I wasn't looking him, his parents were…and I can't get to his apartment. It's not wheelchair accessible." Sayaka always forgot that. She felt shitty after that.

"Fuck, you're with golden boy right now, aren't you? That's why you're calling? He made you? Well I'm curious, Sayaka. Who's better at fucking: me or him?"

"What the hell, Nakazawa?! He's dating Hitomi! You know that!" She vaguely registered in the back of her mind that that was the wrong reason for not sleeping with him.

"Really? That's weird, because you're totally being his bitch. Wait, I guess that's nothing new, is it? Seems like a waste that you're this whipped and not even getting any cock for it."

"Jesus Christ, you're disgusting! Don't talk about either of us like that!"

"You're hashing my buzz. Are you coming over or not?"

"Are you dying right now?"

"Dying of loneliness, babe."

"If I still remember you right, more like horniness."

"Are you going to save me from that too? Because you totally can." _I walked right into that one. _

"No, I'm not. You're fine." Kyousuke was making wild gestures. "Hang on a second." She blocked the mouth piece with her hand. "What is it?" She whispered agitatedly. He signalled for him to pass him the phone. She didn't want to keep talking to him anymore than she had too.

"Nakazawa! Hi! It's been too long, how are you?"

Sayaka just looked at him, hoping her expression clearly displayed her sense of disappointment and betrayal. It only stung more when he ignored her in favour of chatting amicably with the lost lamb of a friend who didn't even give a damn about him. She zipped up her coat, turned on her heel, and marched out the door. She slammed it way harder than necessary. It helped keep the tears that were threatening to spill from falling from her eyes that had way too much dark makeup caked on.

* * *

Kyoko sifted through the money she made last night making a mental count. At the club alone, she made over 170,000 yen in tips over her four hour shift which was actually really high compared to normal. _I could get used to this_. Plus, she didn't mind using the new girl as a prop. It's not like she really had had an existent sex life over the past three years or anything.

Then, of course, with the collection of the 1,000,000 yen from the contract, she was more than set to send Yuma to New York. _Especially since that sucker of a teacher is totally going to end up paying for half of it. _

Her mind wandered back to the new girl as she walked downstairs to pick up the mail. She was cute…really cute. She still absolutely hated her hair. But Kyoko had never liked blondes much; they always reminded her of a certain someone she would rather not be reminded of. Maybe that was it?

Everything piece of mail in her hands looked pretty standard; rent bill, electricity, junk mail, water, junk mail, heating…City of Kazamino Legal Department? That was new.

She opened up the chunky-looking letter when she sat back down at the kitchen table. _Must be that damn ticket I got. I'm surprised they're that fast though. _

She read the subject and all of her hopes of this letter being about a trivial ticket vanished.

"Dear Miss Sakura,

"As per by-law 748B "Mandatory Conditions of Public Premises", the City of Kazamino must make regular visits to all public premises to ensure the safety of the public is assured. As such, we visited your property located at 2642 Okinawa Blvd, "Open Eyes Reform Baptist Church of Kazamino" on February 25, 2032.

" Our appraisers determined that the state of your property was unacceptable for public safety. In order to maintain custody of this property, the following repairs must be done:"

Kyoko's eyes widened with horror as she read the extensive list. Repair windows (which she had broken herself in fits of fury), patch holes in walls, replace foundation suspected to have been damaged in Mitakihara storm of 2026 , and more.

"We trust that your insurance will cover all damages relating to the Mitakihara storm of 2026. As such, we have clearly specified which damages were suspected to have been a result of Acts of God.

"Please be aware that failure to sufficiently rehabilitate the property by September 30, 2032 will result in its seizure.

"Should you have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact us at-"

Kyoko immediately picked up the phone and dialled the number. She didn't know if the building even had insurance, but consider that her Dad died seven years ago and was broke as shit for a lot of the time before that, she doubted that they had many any payments in almost ten years. She sure hadn't. The more she thought about it, the more illegal that seemed to be.

"Thank you for contacting the City of Kazamino. If you know the extension-"

She angrily starting pounding in the extension, thereby cutting off the automated voice that agitated her more than it should have.

"You are being transferred to the Legal Department. One moment please."

Some sort of admittedly catchy elevator music began to play. Kyoko paced nervously. _This is bad. This is bad. Shit, this is really, really bad. _

"Good morning, Kazamino Legal Services. How can I help you?" A courteous-sounding woman greeted.

"My name is Sakura Kyoko and I got a letter from your department saying my property was going to be seized. What the fuck?!" She winced. _Dammit Kyoko, get your shit together! You need them to like you! _

"Ah, I'm sorry. That came out wrong. I'm just really scared about all of this."

"Yes, that's very understandable Sakura-san. Could I have your file number please?" The woman said unfazed. Kyoko supposed she must get phone calls like this all the time. She recited the jumble of numbers and letters from the top of the page.

"Ah, the church on Okinawa. Are they still providing sermons? My mother used to go every weekend a number of years ago. She said those sermons changed her life." Kyoko winced.

"Yeah…not anymore. The minister died and no one took over. The church has been in my custody ever since." The woman gasped.

"Oh my goodness, yes, I remember hearing about that. Are you his daughter?"

"Yeah, that's me."

"I am so, so sorry for your loss."

"Yeah, it's kind of old news now. It's fine. Thank you though."

"How old were you at the time you were given the rights to the property?"

"I was thirteen. Why?"

"A thirteen year old was given the rights to a large public property?" _Shit_.

"Uh, well, I'm not so sure-"

"This was clearly an oversight on the city's part. I can see from the reports that it is in an advanced state of disrepair, and it's no wonder. A teenager never should have been given that responsibility, especially considering the circumstances. Did the city talk to your foster parents or institution about this? Do they have any records?"

"I never had any foster parents and I sure as hell never went to any damn institution." The police mentioned putting her in one right after her family died but she ran for it. No one ever looked for her though so it was fine.

"Who was looking after you?"

"No one. I looked after myself."

The line was silent.

"You have been looking after yourself and a large public property since you were thirteen." It didn't sound like a question.

"Yes."

"Had your family left you a trust? A guardian? Anything or anyone?"

"No. My family was in debt for years. After we got popular most of the money went towards paying it off or getting more stuff for the church. All I got was the church, I guess. And we didn't have any close family. We never really had a lawyer come in to go over it or anything. I don't think my parents even had a will. They sure didn't have any money though."

The line was silent again.

"There are a number of issues here that need to be addressed. I would recommend consulting a lawyer."

"About the building?"

"Yes, about that too. Did you have insurance on it? I am guessing that no one would have told you about that."

"No, they sure didn't. Please, this church is all I have left of my family. I don't want to lose it. My father, even though he was very ill mentally when he died, would not have wanted me to lose it. What should I do?" Kyoko wasn't even trying to be manipulative. She wasn't even sure if she could use her enchantment powers over the phone.

"The appraiser estimated that there was about 80,000,000 yen in damages. I would not suppose you have that kind of money." Another statement instead of a question.

"No. Saving money has never really been my strong point." There wasn't much of a reason to save when you were probably going to die within the next few years. Kyoko liked to live as large as she could. The only thing she had for Yuma if she were to die was a hefty life insurance policy she had taken out on herself and put Yuma as the sole beneficiary.

"I would recommend seeking legal counsel immediately Sakura-san. Tell them everything you told me. They may be able to help you more than I can. Osawa and Associates are excellent for these kinds of cases. Is there anything else I can help you with?" Kyoko got the impression that the lady was very uncomfortable and wanted her off the line. _What's her problem?_

"You could call off the order to take my church."

"Please consult the law firm I suggested and they will contact our office further. Remember to tell them everything you have just told me. Thank you for your time Sakura-san." And with that, she hung up the phone. _Bitch. _

This was going to be a problem.

* * *

Sayaka sifted through the money she made last night making a mental count. She had earned over 150,000 yen on her first night. In four hours she made 140,000 yen. All in paper money.

She was ashamed that her mind began to do a mental count of how many hits that would buy her. This was going to be a problem and she was going to be going back the following night. She was scheduled for three to four shifts per week. _I'm fucked. _

"So Miki, how did last night go?" Ryo asked from behind his modest wooden desk. While the desk was small and looked like it could below to a rookie like her, the walls of his office spoke otherwise. For being only 34 years old, Ryo had earned some of the most prestigious honours officers in Japan could earn, many of which took people decades of work to get one. He was one of the best cops there was and had plenty to do after the Mitakihara disaster gave birth to a huge crime bubble that he was still working on popping.

An advantage of having such a man as her supervisor was that he did not look only at experience; he could see the potential of her younger staff and pushed them to their limits. He was well aware of her past with drugs, and thus avoided sending her into crack houses, but he didn't feel the need to keep her behind a desk. Sayaka had no idea what he saw in her, but she was grateful every day for whatever it was.

"It was alright. It's different. Really, really different."

"Did you start to make any friends?" _This isn't first grade Ryo. _

"Yes, I've made a few. My mentor's clients are mostly criminals so I have a connection there. She's also proposed that we do a double routine so I have been getting into private rooms with them. There's going to be a shipment of sunshine snow coming in on Tuesday to the harbour in Old Town."

Ryo spat out his coffee.

"You found that out already? You've been there one night!"

"People talk pretty liberally when they're in a private room, I guess."

"Fantastic work Miki! Keep reporting these things to me. Just remember to take everything at face value and don't show a particularly strong interest in anything like this, ok? They might be feeding your wrong information to find out if you're an agent or not. Just be a fly on the wall." _Well, I'm something but I wouldn't call myself a fly on the wall._

"So you don't think the shipment is real?"

"Oh, it's real. You're not our only undercover agent. We had been tipped off about this last week. I'm still impressed that you found out about that on your first night. Damn Miki, what did you do?"

"Uhh…"

"Oh, right. Well I guess you might not want to talk about it. Is everything you're doing legal?"

"I think so?" _Is live pornography illegal?_

An uncomfortable silence fell upon the room. The closed door muffled most of the sounds from the bustling office, but not all of them. They just sat there and looked at each other uncomfortably. Ryo leaned over his desk and gestured for Sayaka to come closer.

"If anyone asks, everything you do is legal there. I don't care if you do a few questionable things, as long as you're comfortable and you're not hurting anyone, got it? But you didn't hear that from me." He whispered. She nodded.

"And how is the environment there. Do you think you can handle it?" She knew exactly what he was talking about.

"I think it's going to be hard, to be honest. I'm not sure if I was the best decision to take on this assignment."

"You'll be great at this, Miki. Of the three choices we had, you have the best base instincts for being an undercover. I see a lot of myself in you, you know. And I know you're strong enough to not cave into any temptations like that. Just remember that. You've been clean for almost two years now."

She nodded, facial expression full of confidence, but inside she was terrified and not so sure.

"I have to ask. You found out about that shipment. Was that from Megumi? Our intel said he was only an intermediary."

"Well, he was there but he wasn't the one who was talking about it."

"So who did?" He asked while taking a sip of his coffee.

"Watanabe James and Kurosawa Yuta."

He spat out his coffee again.

"You met Kurosawa?!"

"Yeah, he's one of my mentor's regulars. Who is he?"

Ryo was silent. The silence was uncomfortable, but not because it was awkward like the one from a few moments ago. This was tense.

"We suspect he is the major supplier of all of Kazamino's drugs. We haven't been able to prove anything yet though. We've tried arresting him a few times but he gets off every time. It seems like he has someone else getting them in. To be frank, we've never been able to get someone close enough to him before to find anything. Who else was he with?"

"His son, Fusao; Miyamoto Suki and Tsubasa; And Watanabe James."

"I know the Miyamoto twins damn well. Same situation as Kurosawa but with human trafficking. But why the hell were they together?"

"I don't know. I just know that they all hang out there a lot with my mentor."

"That doesn't make sense. That doesn't make any damn sense." He muttered mostly to himself. "What about the other two, Kurosawa Fusao and Watanabe Jimmy? Who are they?"

"I don't know too much about them. Fusao is Kurosawa's son helping with the 'family business' they called it and Watanabe James is in international logistics".

"International logistics?"

"That's what he called it."

A silence fell upon the room again. She could see her department chief's mind racing.

"Miki, I don't know if you realize you might be standing right on a goldmine here. What else happened with them?"

"Fusao wants to see me again, I think. He's new at the club and doesn't have a regular girl yet. My mentor is encouraging me to make him my regular client."

"Do that. That's brilliant. Stay in there. I don't know what you did and I don't give a damn; this is brilliant. This is fucking brilliant! I'd have killed for a chance like this!" Sayaka had never seen him grin that wide before. His face reminded her of Kyousuke's when he got his first violin, but more deranged and frightening.

"Did you get anything on any of the others? Hiroshi, Atahiko, Dresden?"

"Not a bit. "

"You know what, it's fine. Ignore Hiroshi and Atahiko. You have way bigger fish to focus on."

"What about Dresden? What exactly did she do, anyways?" Ryo sighed in frustration. Sayaka could tell this conversation had come up many times.

"That's the thing; we're not sure exactly. A lot of our other undercovers have heard that she's a contractor of sorts who does a lot of things for a lot of people; her best service, from what we hear, is she makes problems 'disappear'. And it's true; we've had a few incidents where we know someone was murdered and she was hired to hide the bodies, and we've never been able to find them. We think she'd be able to give us a lot of crimes and names if we could find her. We've been suspecting for quite some time that "Ophelia Dresden" is an alias. None of our intel has seen her before or even spoken to her. They just hear from someone that someone in their organization knew someone who knew someone who knew Ophelia. But we managed to trace that Tomi is the one who knows her, so we were hoping someone could figure her out if they got close to him."

"I see." Sayaka didn't have a clue how she was going to be able to find her. Kyoko knew Tomi well though, so maybe if she kept being this close to her…

"But don't focus on her Miki. She's not nearly as important as the Kurosawas or the Miyamotos. Hell, we don't even know if she's a woman or even _real_. The Kurosawas and Miyamotos are your top priority from here on out. I'll get you their records right away so you can see what you're dealing with."

"Aye aye, cap'n!"

"Two more things Miki."

"Hm?"

"First, I'm proud of you. This is absolutely fantastic work, and I have no doubt in my mind you're the only one who would have been able to pull this off." He said kindly. Sayaka blushed, trying to keep from smiling like an idiot.

"Thanks boss."

"And second: if you quit on this, so help me God I will strangle you."

"Oh."

* * *

**AN**: Hi again everyone! I'm sorry it took me so long to update. This chapter came out much longer than I expected. Heck, I actually cut it off earlier than I had planned because it was getting crazy long.

I'm sorry for all of the OCs. I personally hate stories with tons of those, but I can't make this story work without them; there just aren't enough regular characters in the show to make this plot work. But don't worry, the main three are always going to be Sayaka, Kyoko, and Yuma! OCs are only supporting characters, and they all serve an important purpose. I want to do my best to not make them Mary Sues or Gary Stus. I felt like Sango was getting to be a borderline Mary Sue, but she really doesn't have a huge speaking part in the story, so don't worry about her if she bugs you. She is going to be important later though.

This was my first time writing smut, and I have no idea how I did. What do you think? Do you have any suggestions? Thank you everyone who reviewed, followed, and favourited the story so far! I really appreciate the constructive criticism, and I do apologize for the onii/onee mistake. I think I'm going to use the suggestion to go by "Aneki" from here on.

If you have any more suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

Next chapter should be a lot shorter, so I'm hoping I can update faster.

Thanks!

-Don'tKillKenny


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Sayaka hated the long walk from her apartment to her parent's house. Some days it was great because it gave her plenty of time to think. Today it was awful because it gave her plenty of time to think.

She was getting in over her head. If she pulled everything off, she would be the hero of the squad! If she fucked up, which seemed more and more likely, she was going to wind up face down in the river in town.

The files KPS had on Kurosawa and the Miyamotos were much larger than the ones she had been dealing with before. The problem with the files is that there was never any solid evidence that could convict them; just things other undercovers had heard that they had done. This was the first time that anyone from the force actually had direct contact with them outside of a police station or court setting.

The files gave her more than enough to go off though. It was a lucky thing she had no idea who they were going in; she had no doubt in her mind that they might have caught her lying had she known what to expect. The threats these people posed were not to be taken lightly at all. She could see what Sango was warning her about.

The Miyamotos were not husband and wife, but rather twins who just did not look a thing alike. They were the top 'suppliers' for human trafficking in this region of Japan; primarily for the sex trade, but if you offered the right price they could do organ trade too. What terrified Sayaka the most was how they got their victims; they picked up addicts and homeless from the streets. She made the mistake of wondering how many times she may have been at risk of being caught by them.

Kurosawa was the chief drug supplier for this and the neighbouring region of Japan. It looked like he had lived in Tokyo before, but once the Mitakihara disaster happened which crippled hundreds of thousands of people emotionally, he saw a business opportunity and moved to Kazamino. He had been successful in Tokyo as well, but here he had no competition; he ran a monopoly on all of the drug trade, except for marijuana.

These three were big fish that the force had been trying to take down for years. They all knew they were the ones at the top, but no one could get close enough to them or prove anything. No one knew they seemed to be on friendly terms with each other either. Now, she was going through additional training so she could be the one to get them; the recovering addict who joined the force a little less than a year ago. What could possibly go wrong?

Sayaka sighed. She knew she couldn't go about thinking like that; that would make her nervous and more likely to fail. Besides, she had a strong ally at the club who could get her involved with them: Kyoko. She could help Kyoko get more tips. Kyoko could help her get more information. It was a win-win.

In some ways, it was too bad that she got the information that she did. Someone else had gotten word of the shipment from the Philippines coming in and the squad was planning to bust that and make a ton of arrests. Unfortunately, because she heard of it and she was the newest agent, they had to cancel that. No doubt Watanabe and Kurosawa would look for people who would have known about the shipment to find out who the rat was. Sayaka was the newest person who had heard; they could easily have assumed that she was the one who told. It was difficult and frustrating that they had to sit by and let a few crimes happen before they would feel comfortable taking any sort of action.

The biggest problem is that because her role involved her wearing little to no clothes, getting a wire in was going to be difficult. There were talks of trying to get a micro one to fit underneath her wig. They were going to experiment more with that later. But without a wire, they were just going to get more he-said-she-said evidence in courts; the most common way that Kurosawa in particular got off the hook.

She couldn't help but cringe at how she was getting involved with them too; she got into a private room with them so they could watch her have sex with a girl she had just met. Sayaka was a bit surprised at herself for having done that; at the same time, she couldn't ignore her gut feeling that they were dangerous. Professionally, it was a great move on her part because she now had access to top notch information; who would suspect that a cop on duty would resort to what could be called prostitution to catch criminals? On a more personal, ethical standpoint…Sayaka didn't want to think about that. What was done was done, and her supervisor, one of the best officers KPS had ever had, was thrilled and proud of her. _That's what counts, right?_

She sighed in aggravation. She had spent the whole day tormenting herself about the developments in her assignment. It was making her tense. And if there were any people she didn't want to look tense around, it was her parents.

She walked up to the apartment building her parents had been living in ever since they moved to Kazamino. It was very similar on the outside to the one they had rented in Mitakihara. However, inside the layout was completely different, with entirely different furniture. Everything had been destroyed in the storm. Her family lost a lot of their prized possessions, including an antique tea set that had been passed down her father's family for six generations. That had crushed him more than anything else; even more than the loss of his business.

Her father owned a small bookkeeping firm before. It had gotten fairly big by their standards; there were seven staff including him who had more than enough work to keep them busy. At the beginning, it was only her father there. Her mother had owned a little Laundromat and was going to expand into doing tailoring and dry cleaning too; she had gotten loans from the bank lined up and everything. But when the storm hit, the business literally collapsed and the insurance she got wasn't enough to get started by up again. Ten of the sixteen washing machines made it, but she had nothing to do with them. They still have a few of them in the damn apartment.

They were exactly what the French would have called "petite bourgeoisie"; in both the politically correct meaning and the derogatory one. In the politically correct one, they were middle class and owned their own businesses, but they still had to do the same work their staff did; they did not make enough to be able to, or even have to focus solely on the management side of their businesses full-time. In the derogatory sense, they liked to pretend they were richer than they were.

They used to have huge problems with overspending on stupid stuff, in Sayaka's opinion, like suits and ball gowns that had nowhere to be worn to; a sports car, when everywhere they went was a ten minute walk away and had no parking; they even almost bought a boat at one point, but after seeing the docking charges thought better of it. They had been damn lucky that Sayaka didn't want to go to university; there was no way they would have been able to afford it.

Their ridiculous spending stopped after Sayaka's addiction though; having to pay back loans on the destroyed Laundromat in Mitakihara and Sayaka's hefty treatment bills left her family in a constant state of borderline bankruptcy. They never told her, but she saw the mail: "First warning", "Overdue", "Final warning", letters from collection agencies, and more.

Sayaka rung the buzzer on the building.

"What's the password?" Her father asked. They had developed this little tradition after she had joined the force.

"Kazamino Police, open up!" She said in her authoritative cop voice.

"You'll never get us alive!" He shouted back. Nevertheless, the door buzzed, indicating she could go in. She smiled, shaking her head a bit. Her dad was an oddball.

They lived in one of the larger units on the second floor; a two-bedroom. Sayaka encouraged them a few times to move into a smaller one-bedroom, especially because they never used her former room for anything. They kept it exactly the same as the day she left when she was eighteen, aside from the missing furniture that she had brought with her.

No one ever said it, but she knew it was because they were prepared for her to relapse and have to move back in at any time.

She unlocked the apartment door with the key they never took back. She could hear some kind of upbeat music and a woman said "and one and two" from the living room; her Mom must be doing one of her workout DVDs. When she pushed to open the door, it was blocked, clanging against something that sounded heavy, hollow, and metal.

"Seriously Dad? You're going to go that far with the game?"

"What are you talking about?" He yelled from the kitchen. She could see him walking towards the door through the few inches it opened; not nearly enough for her or any human to be able to get through.

"Miko, one of your machines is blocking the door! Sayaka can't get in. Can you help me move it?" He yelled to the living room. The music and peppy female and instructor stopped.

"That man from the website was going to come over to buy it today! I have no idea why he's not here yet." She complained. Sayaka's mother had a sweet voice; many people said Sayaka's voice sounded just like hers.

She could hear some rustling on the other side of the door. If anyone should be moving that machine, it should be her. Her mother was very out of shape, clearly on the "mad workout and healthy eating" binge of her monthly diet cycle again while her father's knees and back had been getting progressively worse over the past few years.

"Don't hurt yourselves!" She shouted. They were a loud family; probably way too loud to be considerate neighbours in an apartment building.

"We're fine, fuzz." Her father reassured. "Ready honey? One, two, and three!" He said, both parents making a strained sound as they picked up the machine and moved it back a few inches. Sayaka heard the clang as they dropped it more unceremoniously than they should have.

"Try opening it now, sweet pea." Her mother said. The door opened a few more inches, but it was enough for her to be able to slide in if she sucked her stomach in enough.

"Got it!" Sayaka chirped happily.

"The fuzz is here! Quick, hide the stash!" Her father grinned. Sayaka just smiled and hugged him. When Sayaka became a cop, her mother was so proud that she got a job and was a functional, living member of society; she swore that her father was more excited because he got to keep calling her 'Fuzz', and it made sense. When Sayaka had been a baby, according to her father she was very "fuzzy" so that had always been his nickname for her; more than a few people found it endearing and more than a few people found it odd.

Sayaka's father was a tall, well-built man. Tan skin which Sayaka sure didn't inherit and dark blue hair that was starting to go grey, which Sayaka somewhat did. In primary school, many of Sayaka's classmates called him very handsome. Sayaka therefore assumed he was handsome, but would never actually think that herself because she figured it was weird to judge her parents' physical attractiveness.

She turned to hug her mother and they gave each other a kiss on both cheeks. Her mother had seen that posh westerners did that in a movie back when she was a teenager, so they had done that ever since Sayaka was a baby. Sayaka remembered she terrified Madoka once when they were five and she did that to her; poor girl asked her parents if she and Sayaka were married afterwards. That had been a fun phone call for her mother.

Sayaka's mother had a more average height. She was quite pale and had light brown hair and eyes. Aside from the hair and eyes, Sayaka was a spitting image of her; same skin, same face, and same body type….well, before Sayaka had developed a problem.

Sayaka's mother had put on a great deal of weight when Sayaka began her cycle of leaving the house in good condition and coming back as a mess looking for more money. Sayaka knew she stressed her out, and when her mother was stressed she would cope by eating sweets and cheese in particular. Over Sayaka's two year battle with addiction, she had gained about one hundred twenty pounds. She had now successfully lost about sixty of it.

She used to be a fashionista, back when she felt comfortable buying new clothes every two or three months; she wore bright colours to match her exuberant personality. She was beautiful. But now she had only been to second-hand stores after Sayaka's stint in rehab, and most clothes for overweight women were drab and unflattering. She smiled, pretended it didn't bother her; Sayaka could see right through it. And she felt guilty about it every time she saw her.

"Welcome home, Sayaka." She smiled, hugging her again in her baggy black t-shirt and sweat pants. She was sweaty and gross, but Sayaka hugged back happily. Sayaka knew her mother liked to hug her as much as possible because, as she revealed one session, for months she thought she would never be able to do that again. She felt that indulging her need to have regular body contact was the least she could do after all she had put her through.

And that was part of how their new routine came to be. Every Monday and Thursday evening, she would come over for dinner and a group recovery session. Every Sunday afternoon, they would have brunch and an activity that rotated in three week cycles; one week something special with her mother, one week something special with her father, and one week they would do something altogether. Sayaka figured that even if she lost all of her friends, her parents would be happy and able to keep her social life going just with them. It was a sad but comforting thought at the same time.

"I'm going to finish my workout; I think it only has five minutes left."

"Have fun." Her father said with a bright smile.

"So Fuzz, tell me about this undercover work you're doing! Taking down bad guys yet?"

"Not yet Dad, but I hope I will soon!" She replied earnestly.

"Let me know when you get a movie deal out of it. I want to take part in the casting decisions. I think someone like that guy who played Bond in the new James Bond movie would be alright to play me…might need to work out a bit more to look as good though." He said as he mock-admired himself in the mirror.

"Might need to lose a bit more hair too."

"My daughter, you wound me."

The looked at each other and grinned. Walking past the living room to the kitchen, where a tantalizing smell was coming from (_Baked Mac and Cheese; my favourite American food!_), her mother was doing squats with chest flies. Her mother was breathing heavily. Sayaka caught her father's eyes following her mother's ass as it went up and down. She cringed; she hated thinking that her parents actually had sex, but at the same time she was glad to know that her Dad was still attracted to her Mom; she could only imagine what would happen to her Mom's self-esteem if he wasn't.

The oven beeped.

"Kenji, take the macaroni out of the oven!" Her mother yelled from the floor. She had made it to the cool down stretch, and looked like she needed it.

"Done!" He yelled back. He turned the oven off (an ability he recently acquired, much to the joy of her mother) while Sayaka set the table. They started eating as soon as her mother finished.

"So sweetie, how's your undercover work? Are you staying safe?" Her mother asked. Sayaka took advantage of the fact that she had taken too large of a bite of macaroni to answer right away. She was not sure how to answer that. She didn't seem like she was in any danger yet.

"Yeah." She said quickly and nonchalantly.

"Can you seriously not tell us what you're doing at all? Come on, we won't tell. Bookkeeper's honour!" Her father grinned, putting his left arm over his heart.

"Seriously can't Pops. Sorry about that." She wasn't sorry at all.

"I'm just so excited to see you moving along the ranks so quickly. You've really found something you're good at! I always told people that you don't need a university education or the best grades to succeed." Her mother beamed. Sayaka nearly flunking high school and not going to university had been a bit of a sore spot; not because her parents thought she had to go, but it seemed like some of their friends thought she did. And by friends, Sayaka meant the Shizukis and Kamijous; Hitomi and Kyousuke's parents.

The three families had been good friends for years before the disaster. Sayaka's father did the bookkeeping for Kyousuke's father's law firm; a much larger and more successful business than her father's own. Both of their wives had been pregnant at the time and bonded over that. The two mothers-to-be quickly became good friends. They had actually hoped that their kids would get married someday. Sayaka had too, at one point.

Then in sixth grade, the Shizukis moved from Kyoto to Mitakihara for Hitomi's father's job. He was a museum director, and an excellent one at that. He quickly met the Kamijous at some sort of social function, who then introduced them to Mikis. Sayaka and Hitomi sort of got pushed together after that.

Not that Sayaka minded, of course. Hitomi was nice, if not a bit shy and conservative compared to her and Madoka. But her comforting and rational presence quickly became a core part of their social group and turned the dynamic duo into the terrific trio, as dubbed by Madoka. Sayaka joked that Madoka was really lame for naming their group, but part of her kind of loved it.

Things had started to go downhill after the incident at Mitakihara Middle School though. Kyousuke wasn't there, and wasn't impacted in the same way that Hitomi and Sayaka were. None of the parents really believed what the kids had told them, but Hitomi had mentioned that Sayaka had led them up to the center of where the monsters were to try to defeat them. Hitomi's parents thought she was crazy and sent her away to a "recovery camp" for the summer and silently blamed Sayaka for their daughter's newfound mental instability. Still, they found that Sayaka was good for quelling their daughter's anxiety and hoped that she would help her get over her agoraphobia.

It only got worse after Sayaka started struggling with addiction. Both the Kamijous and Shizukis tried to get their children to stop talking to Sayaka, which looking back on it was completely understandable. They excommunicated her parents from their social group too. After Sayaka started to get clean, the parents gradually began to talk again. The Kamijous pretended to be oblivious to anything they ever did having been harmful while the Shizukis simply never talked about it. Sayaka's parents smiled to them to their faces, but had spent many hours trash-talking them to anyone who would listen behind their backs; mostly Sayaka.

"As long as you're happy with what you do, right Mom?" Sayaka smiled politely back.

"I don't know about that. I like the western way of thinking. My daughter didn't end up on the pole, so I succeeded as a father!" Kenji joked. Sayaka laughed and took a big drink of water, looking away awkwardly.

Sayaka's mother's phone rang.

"Excuse me for a moment." She said, clicking the button to allow a video call to go through.

"Good evening Miki-san. Oh my! You look flushed. Have you decided to start working out again?" Mrs. Shizuki; Hitomi's mother. Beautiful and elegant like Hitomi, but had the bad tendency to say things that were bitchier than she meant them to be…at least according to Hitomi.

"Ah, yes, I have Shizuki-san, thanks for noticing." She said awkwardly. "How can I help you?"

"Can't a friend simply call to talk?"

"Well, in that case I'm actually in the middle of having dinner with-"

"Never mind, I'll make this quick. My husband and I have tickets to a gala next Saturday. I was wondering if you and Kenji wanted to come? The Kamijous already have tickets, so it would be nice to get the three couples back together, hmm?"

"Oh, thank you but I'm afraid we'll have to pass-"

"Is it because you're worried you won't have anything to wear? Fumiko-chan, you don't need to worry about that! I might be able to find an old thing of mine if your size if you'd like? I still have a few dresses I bought from when I was pregnant with Hitomi."

The tension in the air got so thick so fast, you could cut it with a knife. There was an awkward silence for a few moments. Mrs. Shizuki was very talented at directing her harsh comments right to anyone's weak spot.

"Thank you, Shizuki-san. I'm afraid I have plans that night."

"I'm sorry, did I offend you Fumi-" Her mother ended the call. She looked down at her plate that was only half-finished.

"Mom, are you-"

"I'm not hungry. How about I get cleaned up and we go?" Her smile looked strained. She picked up the plates, threw out the rest of the food, and went to the bathroom to have a shower.

* * *

Kyoko hated the long walk from her apartment to her father's church. She never liked going; it was the epitome of a bad reminder. She usually went just to make sure that it was moderately clean and not collapsing (though she had evidently done a shit job of it) and to keep teenagers and gangs out. She had no intention of having the church seized by the police and then sniffing at her. The more she could stay off the radar, the better.

This part of town was rough. It used to be nice; a blooming industrial area that was attached to both Kazamino and Mitakihara. It was now known as the old industrial district, because after the disaster, no one really bothered to fix it. All of the development in Kazamino and new Mitakihara extended away from the disaster sites. The two cities were no longer directly connected; but they were only about a ten minute drive from each other, so it certainly wasn't bad.

There had been talk for years about ripping down all the buildings here. And it was true that none of them, except for maybe the church, were particularly attractive. They were desolate and attracted all kinds of homeless who sought shelter from the terrors of the street or chills of Kazamino's winters. Some of the buildings, closer to the church than Kyoko would have liked, also attracted people looking for a high that only some form of harmful substance could provide; there were a lot of crack houses around here.

Kyoko had dealt with her fair share of druggies. Hell, she'd found a few dead ones in the church. She always just moved them closer to one of the crack houses or into a witch's barrier and disinfected the stone floors of the church. It was a good thing they didn't stain.

It was mostly because of the fucking druggies that she came back about four times a week to check up on things. That, and this area seemed to be a witch feeding ground. She smirked mirthlessly at how many of the drug addiction awareness groups cited the statistic that 35% of addicts on the streets of Kazamino go missing, assuming there are some deranged serial killers loose; there easily could be a murderer or two, but the majority of them just wound up as witch food. Easy snacks too; not like they could run very fast when they were high out of their mind.

So Kyoko always had reasons to come by. She tried to leave as quickly as she could when she was there. Today, she had a feeling she might be there for a while though.

She cursed to herself when she saw the building repair contractor's truck already outside the church. She thought she was early! Her plan had been to clean up as much inside as possible to make it look presentable, and hopefully less in need of repairs. This was the third one she had to call out. The first two looked and actually quoted significantly higher prices than the City of Kazamino had predicted; turns out, the appraiser was an internal contractor, so that would be the price the infrastructure department would have charged the city. Commercial contractors were way, way more expensive.

When she called the city to ask about it, they apologized for the confusion (_fucking dumbass tools_), and said there was a counter-offer on the table: she could sell the property to the city for 100,000,000 yen and they would do all of the repairs themselves…or tear it down. She told them to go to hell.

"Hey, you're early!" She greeted, aggravation evident in her tone.

"Sorry Sakura-san. I had a weird amount of time free between my last job and this appraisal. From the files you sent me, it looked like we were gonna be here for a while. Could I ask your name again?" This man had a large beer belly that was not hidden particularly well underneath his overalls. He reminded Kyoko of an overweight Bob the Builder. He also spoke very slowly and had a voice that reminded her of Kermit the Frog. She immediately got the impression that this man was very, very stupid.

"Sakura Kyoko."

"Oh.." He looked confused as he flipped through the folder in his hand. Kyoko had given him permission to get the file from the city. He refused to come out without it. "Uh, you're related to the Sakura family that owns this building, right?"

"Of course I am, why the hell else would I care?" She snapped back. She took a deep breath and quickly recomposed herself. _Fuck, I am going to have to learn to be a lot more patient with these people. _

"Sorry, sorry. I shouldn't have snapped. Yeah, I'm the one who owns this place."

"Oh. Ok."

They walked towards the doors together. Just as Kyoko was about to heave it open, as it was difficult to move (the hinge was stubborn since the door frame was slightly tilted now; you really had to yank to pull it open of closed), chubby Bob the Builder made a sound that Kyoko inferred meant he wanted her attention.

"What is it?"

He chuckled nervously, removing his hard yellow hat to rub at his sweating bald scalp. Kyoko found him very unattractive.

"This might sound kinda silly. I guess I always watched too many of 'em horror movies but…have you ever seen a ghost in there?" _Oh God, he's an idiot and doesn't even speak properly._

"What." Kyoko asked, but it didn't sound like a question.

"Well, you know the story 'bout this place, right? The priest went crazy and murdered his whole family before he killed himself. I heard his family's ghosts still haunt the place. Some people have said they've even seen 'em!" Kyoko let out an aggravated sigh.

She wasn't sure what was worse: the fact that this was the third contractor she had to have come out, or that he was the third contactor to ask if this damn place was haunted.

"No it's not fucking haunted." She snarled. "If you want, I can even go inside and check for ghosts for you. Heads up: the more important question would have been if there were any junkies or teenagers hiding inside. They're your real problem." She cringed to herself. _Dammit Kyoko, you can't say shit like that! This dumb fucker needs to think he's safe! _

"Ah, er, yeah, I heard. I'd have some of my guys put up barricades to keep 'em junkies out. Can't imagine they'd be too much of a problem. We've dealt with 'em before. Threaten to call the cops and they go runnin'!"

"Good, I'm glad to hear you're ok with them." She smiled flirtaciously. _Play up the charm, play up the charm_. "It's always nice to know there's a brave, strong man around to keep me safe when I go in here." She said as she traced her fingers up his muscular arms. The man blushed and smiled.

"Aw, well shucks Miss Sakura-san." He said bashfully. _That just sounds ridiculous._

She heaved the door open and the man made a note in his book. She was surprised the guy knew how to write.

"What are you writing?"

"We're gonna have to fix the foundation an' your door Miss Sakura-san."

They walked into the main congressional hall. Kyoko had removed most of the pews she had bashed in various fits of anger. It looked much bigger now that there were only about ten left, oddly displaced around the room. She considered moving the fortunate survivors so they would be close together at the front; she never got around to it. That, and they were nailed into the floor and Kyoko didn't know shit about tools.

The man next to her started scrawling down notes rapidly.

Yeah, the church looked worse for wear; Kyoko admitted that. Some vines that had been growing along the outside of the church before her family died had crept inside some of the broken windows a long time ago. One of the Sakura blossom trees, which her little sister had adored simply because of the name, from the cemetery had also invaded the hall through the windows. She had to admit though, in spring, the combination of the blooming flowers and the way the sunlight came through the windows made the place hauntingly beautiful. She felt bad that those branches were going to have to be cut down so the window could be repaired.

The roof was still intact. One of the rafters was broken though; it was the one Kyoko's father had hung himself from. It was the second thing in the church she had destroyed. Looking back on it, she was damn lucky that rafter hadn't been necessary to hold the roof up; having the roof collapse on her would have hurt like hell.

The first to be destroyed had been the baptismal font. It was, or rather had been a fountain in the back corner of the church. Maybe it was the fact that Momo's favourite part of her father's masses had been when they did baptisms that made Kyoko hate it so much; it was the biggest reminder of happy times. Kyoko had used to be the one to dress in the robes and carry the towels to help; Momo took over later when Kyoko was given collection duty instead. Her father loved baptisms too; he said it gave him faith that another soul in the world would be looking to make it a better place, and they only needed one to make a difference.

_What a fucking dumbass. _

Bob the frog came up behind her.

"How did that happen?" He pointed at the former fountain. Kyoko shrugged.

"Probably the Mitakihara disaster. This place got pretty beat up."

"Really? These look like they were made by humans." He pointed to scratch marks on the ground which Kyoko doubted a junkie could have been strong enough to do; she must have clawed at it at some point. She really lost herself sometimes in her tantrums in that first year after they died.

"Not sure what I can tell you. It might have been a junkie. I hear meth can make people think they are covered in bugs so they claw their own skin off."

"I heard that too. Scary stuff."

They stood together in silence for a moment before he continued his walk around the place. He kept scribbling down notes as he went.

"Wow, does this place have cat combs?" He asked excitedly, pointing towards stairs that led to the basement. The stairs were actually a bit hidden; just a narrow stairwell in the corner to the far right of the altar, behind one of the pillars. It would be easy to assume they were not there at all unless you walked behind the stone mass and looked directly at them.

"What? No, we don't have any cat combs. Why would we have those?" Kyoko squinted at him. There were some strays that walked in, which was good since there were probably mice in here, but she sure never groomed them.

"Aw. I heard some of 'em fancy old churches in the west had 'em. It would be cool to see one." _Ah, now I get it_.

"You're thinking of catacombs, not cat combs. And no, we have a cemetery out back. The basement was just where we kept some stuff in storage."

"Oh." He was still disappointed. "I have to go down there anyways. The city said the foundation is a wreck. I need'a check it out."

"Yeah, I heard that too."

They walked down the stairs. The wooden door had to be pulled harshly to open, but there wasn't as much resistance as the stone doors at the front of the building had. The wood was so rotten now that there were streaks of rot on the ground from where the door opened and closed. It was pretty gross, Kyoko knew that, but she never had much of a reason to go down here anyways.

She flicked the light on. It reeked of mold down here. Kyoko didn't even remember them having so much wood down here, but she never checked often; she was usually in the main area to clean up. She had regretted that since having the contractors come by.

The area looked very crowded. Some of the storage shelves reached straight to the ceiling like the room was too short for them. She noticed some of the dolls that they used for the nativity scene sitting high on one such shelf. She and Momo used to sneak down here in the summer months to play with them. She would have to get on top of the wooden platform at the base holding up the shelf if she wanted to reach them; she didn't want to risk falling through it in front of the contractor.

Kermit the builder scribbled more notes.

"I don' think the City did a damage check down here." The others had said the same thing. Kyoko sighed.

"Yeah, the others said the same thing."

Kermit wandered around. He pressed his foot on a mould covered carpet underneath a shelf that held various decorations for Lent.

"The wood under here needs to be replaced. Feels like it's gonna cave in soon." He said as he lifted the rug to check. Kyoko didn't even remember that thing; maybe she would have recognized it if it wasn't so green and blue.

"Did ya have any flooding down here? Looks like everything on the floor musta' gotten soaked at some point."

"I wouldn't be surprised." She sighed, looking away. She never claimed to be an expert at building maintenance, but this was just embarrassing. She had really let things go over here.

They went back upstairs.

"Do ya want me to look at the house part too?"

"Sure, why not." She sighed. The house was a wreck too; burned and rotting. She only went in there when she was feeling particularly nostalgic.

It was quite barren now. Most of the things had been destroyed in the fire. Anything else that really had any value was stolen; she felt so guilty when her mother's diamond bracelet, a gift from someone Kyoko couldn't remember was taken; she remembered how many times that bracelet nearly got pawned off for food. Her mother had been so happy when their luck turned around and she could keep it.

Now, there was just some beat up dusty furniture in parts, maybe a few trinkets here and there. Kyoko could see how people would find the house haunted.

While Bob walked around investigating walls, roofs, and floors, scribbling about, Kyoko walked upstairs. If she was here, she might as well go check out her old room. She lost track of how many stories she used to act out for Momo with finger puppets before bed to keep their minds off their empty stomachs.

As she opened the door to her room, the first thing she noticed was a horrible stench, like bad body odor combined with sewage. _That's weird; that wasn't here earlier._

She walked further into the room to try to find the source of the smell. In the corner of her eye, she saw it: a corpse of an old woman with frazzled white hair, rotten teeth gnawing at her chapped lips while she rummaged through old drawer. Kyoko nearly jumped out of her skin. Then she got a better a look.

_Oh thank God, it's just a junkie. _She sighed a bit in relief. She was letting those fucking haunted house stories get to her head.

"Hey, get the fuck out!" She whispered harshly. She didn't want Kermit to hear her and get freaked out. He said he had no problem with junkies, but she figured if he found one while he was here he might up the quote.

"I'm looking for treasure." She replied in a low, raspy voice; she sounded like she had smoked too much. Kyoko was willing to bet this one would be dead within a month. Maybe even a few minutes if she didn't get. The fuck. Out.

"That's great, look for it somewhere else. There's nothing here." She said as she grabbed the woman and pulled her to her feet.

"But I need the treasure." She complained without any resistance. She was skin and bones, which was practical because it made it easier to throw her out.

She checked to make sure Bob wasn't looking before she walked the woman outside. It was warm enough out now that she didn't feel bad about kicking the woman out without a coat. She was wearing a loose t-shirt that Kyoko guessed used to be white and tattered jeans. Meth heads were never particularly well known for their excellent wardrobes.

"Miss Sakura-san? Where are you?" Bob asked from inside. _Fuck! _

"I'm outside! I just had to take something ou-"

"I NEED THE TREASURE!" She screamed. Kyoko whipped her head around, just to see the glint of a knife coming down at her out of the corner of her eye.

She dodged it easily enough. She was used to all sorts of sharp objects coming at her, and they were usually much faster and with more force than this one. She didn't hesitate to whip the back of her fist against the woman's jaw, hearing a cracking sound that couldn't have been painless. The woman crumpled to the ground, screaming in agony. Kyoko didn't even flinch throughout the entire ordeal.

"Miss Sakura-san, are ya ok?!" Kermit asked, a bit out of breath. He must have started running when he heard the junkie's battle cry. _Thank you God he didn't see that. _

"I'm fine. Nothing happened; she just fell down. Don't worry about her." She said nonchalantly as she discretely kicked the knife away from her, using just a bit of magic to nudge it through the metal bars on the sewer hole. The woman on the ground groaned.

"Should we call an ambulance?"

"Probably not much point for that one." They probably should, but she sure as hell didn't want the cops involved. She'd already had one unpleasant encounter with them at this church, and she didn't want another. Plus, she decided that the woman was a bitch who deserved whatever came to her; fucker tried to stab her and didn't even do a good job of it. Bob looked profoundly uncomfortable.

"She didn' try ta harm ya, did she?"

"Nah." She lied. In her case, it didn't really count. "Let's go back inside. Is there anything else you need to see?"

* * *

They got ready to go to the rehab session in silence. Kenji had tried to give Fumiko a pep talk, but it clearly had not been that effective. The donuts they bought for dessert, a new tradition since Sayaka joined the force, were left on the counter unopened.

"Do you want to go to that gala?" Her father asked hesitantly. His wife didn't spare him a glance.

"Of course not. Shizuki's right, I have nothing to wear. We can have a nice night here, just the two of us." Her smile was hollow as she gave him a quick peck on the lips. Sayaka frowned.

"You two don't need to worry so much; I'm fine! It doesn't bother me, really. I bet this time the weight will come right off. When we sell that last machine, we'll have a bit of extra cash and I can try that new diet pill everyone's been raving about or join an actual gym." She smiled. "Speaking of which: Sayaka, sweetie, could you try to move it back a bit more? I don't think I'd be able to fit through the door like you can."

"Can do!" She said cheerfully; she didn't feel cheerful though. She pushed the machine back towards the wall, hoping that she wasn't supposed to lift it to avoid any damages. She pushed it too fast and knocked some papers off the end table where all of the random junk usually got tossed carelessly. She bent down to pick it up.

A simple white envelope, with "Unit 204" in handwriting was on top of the pile, opened; it had a bright red stamp that read "urgent". She glanced to her parents to make sure they weren't looking; they were off somewhere else.

She quickly glanced at the letter.

"This is your final warning"…"three months overdue"…"Unacceptable"…"Further actions if necessary"…"eviction".

_Fucking hell guys_ she thought worriedly. She knew their financial situation was bad, but she had no idea it had been this bad. Her mother had only found a job as a manager that didn't pay well at a local restaurant; she never told any of their old friends though.

Their rent was 125,000 yen per month; Sayaka had memorized that from the many times they told her to go upstairs and drop off the cheque at the landlord's apartment. He was a reclusive elderly man who lived on the third floor. She also remembered going up there a few times to get messages for her parents when the cheques bounced.

It was hard for her mind to not wander to all of the paper yen that was hiding in her coat pocket; all 150,000 yen. She couldn't think of anything better she would spend it on (_or should_). She snuck out of the apartment and went up to the third floor, knocking on door 305.

_Please be home, please be home, please be home, please be home. _If Sayaka remembered correctly though, there was no other place he would be. Surely enough, the door opened.

"Ah, Miki-chan, hello." He said kindly, though a bit awkwardly. Sayaka was sure he felt bad about the situation; he was a bit of a grouch, but he was a nice man. He even let her parents off the hook that one time she had been high and smashed the front door in. He pretended some street thugs did it, even though everyone knew it was her. Most of the building refused to look at her family anymore.

"Hi Tanaka-san. I just wanted to drop off some of my parents' rent, with interest." She said as she handed him the paper money. "I hope this will be enough to cover December's rent?" He counted the wad of money in his hands with a surprised expression. That was fair; most people didn't' carry that much around in paper cash.

"Yes, just the 125,000 yen for December will be enough. You can take the other 25,000 back."

"Well, could we just consider is part of January's rent then? I think I can get the rest for you next week."

"Uh, sure, of course Miki-chan, thank you." He smiled. He wrote a receipt for her and started to close the door.

"Oh, excuse me, Tanaka-san?"

"Yes?"

"Erm…this may sound odd, but could you not tell my parents about this? They're a bit proud, and I think they might be a bit embarrassed if they found out about this." It was half-true. Tanaka looked very uncomfortable.

"Miki-chan, I'm afraid I have to ask this, just considering your history. Where did you get this money? I don't want to be involved in anything-"

"It's completely legal." She interjected. He looked at her, clearly skeptical.

"Really, it is. I'm a cop for god's sakes. I got this as kind of a…bonus." _Oh fuck, I sound like I took a bribe. _She rubbed her forehead in exasperation. "I'm not sure if my family told you, but I've been working undercover recently. As part of my work, I get a lot of paper cash. It's completely legal, and if I didn't take it I would look more suspicious and blow my cover. It's completely fine." _That's not giving away too much information, is it?_

"You didn't need to turn that money in to the police?" _Good question. _

"No, they said I could keep it as a bonus. Danger pay, I guess." It was true; Ryo had let her keep it. One of the other girls who was training for the job, Ayumi, had asked if they could keep tips. He did say to keep it. Nice guy, Ryo.

Tanaka still looked hesitant.

"I…suppose I can trust you. If the police come by asking about any dirty money though-"

"You should pin it on me. Don't worry Tanaka-san, it's completely fine with me." She smiled genuinely. She could understand where his doubts were coming from.

"Thank you Miki-chan. I look forward to getting the rest next week." He nodded with a small smile. They bowed to each other before he closed the door. She snuck back downstairs to see her family waiting by the door.

"Where were you?" Her mother asked.

"I went to the car. I thought you guys were right behind me." She lied effortlessly.

"Well come on, we're going to be late."

The ride was mostly silent except for the sounds of the poor car's struggled puttering. They had sold their sports car years ago and got this used small car instead. It was an ugly colour; sort of a rusty mauve. Her parents had swallowed their pride and drove this to get-togethers with the Kamijous and Shizukis; the Kamijous pretended to be oblivious that the car was hideous while Mrs. Shizuki made regular snide remarks, particularly about the broken muffler. ("Really now, would it actually be _that _expensive to fix it?")

They pulled up to the community centre and parked. Sayaka silently prayed to whatever deity was out there that it would start again when they left.

They sat in an indoor gym that reminded Sayaka of the one her elementary school used to have. The metal foldout chairs were aligned in rows and facing a lone microphone at the front. This is how meetings always started. Anyone who wanted to share in front of the group went up first and then they would break into smaller group circles.

They tried to have a combination of families in the group circles. Some might be trying to have an intervention. Others might be there worrying that their addicted family member was going to die; frequently, said family member was not in attendance. Other times, the family member had already died. Lastly, they might have one success story.

Sayaka's family was frequently shown as the success story. It gave her both a sense of great pride and fear. Being the beacon of hope for so many people was a big responsibility to uphold.

"Good evening everyone, thank you for coming out. I can see a few new faces here tonight, so to you I say welcome. To everyone who has been coming regularly, or has come back after a bit of a break, welcome back." A young man named Daisuke with blonde hair and a kind face, around thirty years old said into the microphone. He was a drug and addictions counsellor and one of the facilitators here. Sayaka met him in rehab. He had referred her family to this program.

"Before we begin, I believe Miki-san has an announcement she would like to make." Her mother smiled and went up to the front. Fumiko dove headfirst into all of the family support groups that she could. Actually, it had been great for her family; they may all sorts of new friends and business connections for her father. Heck, Fumiko got her job from the father of a young cocaine addict.

"Thank you Daisuke-san. Again, thank you all for coming out. As you know, addictions awareness month is coming soon, and we at the Parents Supporting Addictions and Treatment, or PSAT for you new folks, need to start getting ready. We will be holding meetings on Monday evenings from 7:00-8:30 pm for anyone who would like to join and there will be-ah, yes Karana-san?" She stopped as a middle-aged woman raised her hand.

"I think instead of just awareness this year, we should focus on action. As you all know, 35% of our city's homeless addicts go missing and the police and politicians are doing so little to stop this. We should start a campaign to demand that more be done. What good is a police force if all they do is sit on their asses eating donuts all day! Oh, no offense Miki-chan." She quickly turned to Sayaka.

"None taken." She waved her hand and pursed her lips. There was totally offense taken, but she wasn't going to be the one to cause a scene. Her father patted her knee in support. She understood why the woman was upset; her daughter had gone missing over a year ago and very little had been done. Sayaka had checked the files and she had disappeared without a trace. There was only so much they could do without any actual evidence.

"That sounds like a great idea Karana-san, and I hope you will be coming out on Monday to share your thoughts." Fumiko said politely. Karana nodded enthusiastically. "As well, there will be complementary snacks and beverages for everyone who attends. We hope to see you all there!" There was a brief round of applause. She went back to sit next to Sayaka.

"Thank you Miki-san. Now, does anyone have any thoughts or feelings that they would like to share? The floor is open."

No one made a move. Sayaka's mother looked around before enthusiastically raising her hand.

"Yes, Miki-san, please come up." She had a little smile that Sayaka recognized; it was the smile she had when she was brimming with excitement and had something to say, but didn't want to make it too obvious. She liked it when her Mom smiled like that.

"Thank you Daisuke-san. Last night, I…I had a terrible nightmare. But I guess it wasn't really a nightmare and more of a memory. For those of you who don't know, my family has been struggling with addiction for the past four years." Sayaka was never sure if she found it sweet or that it bugged her that her parents both said that the whole family struggled with it when it was mostly just her; she felt like it made them sound like fuck ups too. "I dreamed that I hadn't heard from my daughter, Sayaka in three weeks. She was just a kid at the time, seventeen. I called the police five times a day, just to ask if they had found her, or anything left of her." She paused and started rubbing at her eyes. Sayaka hated this story.

"Suddenly, I got a phone call from Sayaka's phone. I'm so happy. I'm ecstatic, because my baby's finally calling home. I answer and the first thing I hear is not her voice, but a stranger's asking 'Are you Sayaka's mother'? I have no idea who this person is. I'm terrified because I'm wondering why they have her phone, and why they're calling me. It's so hard not to assume the worse. I think 'this is it. It's over. It's actually over. She's dead. She died.'" Her voice started to break. Sayaka looked at her feet guiltily.

"I just answer 'yes, yes I am. Where is she?' And they tell me they're at that old abandoned church in the old industrial district; the area where all of the homeless go missing or die. I just think 'some crazy murderer got her, didn't they? They just found her body. Or she overdosed at some party'. I'm getting ready to call the funeral home whose" She paused to swallow "phone number I had taped on the fridge a few months ago. I'm not surprised that she's gone, you know? I prayed every day that she would get through it, but part of me just…

"I woke up crying. My husband was there, and I am so lucky that I've had him. I don't think I could have done this alone." Her tone increased in pitch on her last word. Sayaka could feel her father starting to squeeze her hand painfully tight. She hated seeing them showing any kind of weakness. Growing up, they always seemed like super beings to her: strong, caring, perfect and invincible. It shook her to her core to see just how human they were, especially when she was the one that made them that way.

"I couldn't figure out why I had that dream. I only have it when I'm very stressed or on anniversaries. I wasn't feeling stressed so I looked at the calendar and I saw…" A huge smile broke her reddened face. "Today marks the twenty third month that Sayaka's been clean. My strong, beautiful, amazing daughter has been clean for almost two years. And as some of you may have figured out, she has since become a police officer and is moving up the ranks very quickly. She's done so much, and I'm so proud of her." She started crying, but with joy. Sayaka was feeling incredibly embarrassed, but she couldn't not smile.

It was moments like this that she saw that she really was her Mom's pride and joy.

She didn't feel like she deserved it.

The room burst into applause. After a few more stories, most of them somewhat similar to her mother's beginning but with much sadder endings, they broke into smaller groups.

These rehab meetings were like clockwork. It got to the point where Sayaka confused others' stories and names all the time. She could recognize their faces though. And of course, a few stories stood out for her for various reasons.

"Hi everyone. My name is Tatsuya and I've been clean for eight months." A young boy, maybe a bit taller than Sayaka said quietly. He had scruffy auburn hair, big brown eyes and sweet smile; he looked like a tall seven year old.

There were a few reasons why Tatsuya stood out for her. For one, he had the same name as Madoka's little brother. In fact, she imagined that had Tatsuya had the opportunity to grow up, he would look a lot like him.

A second reason Tatsuya was special was that he and Sayaka had the same sort of story. They had originally been into lighter drugs like marijuana and steadily devolved into harder ones, like shrooms and acid to cocaine, heroin, and at one point for Sayaka, meth. It disappeared from the market a few years ago though, which was probably for the best.

The third reason, and arguably most important one, was that Sayaka had known Tatsuya's older brother. _Had_. He had been a quiet boy who mostly kept to himself; she didn't really know him that well. But he was always sitting a few desks to her right; he usually played videogames during breaks instead of socializing.

Sayaka's most vivid memory of him was watching those horrific worm creatures licking and gnawing on his exposed spine like her grandma's dog used to do to those bones her family bought from the supermarket.

She rubbed her eyes in masked frustration, hoping her parents wouldn't see that she was reliving the unpleasant memories she relived every damn time. There was a name for this: posttraumatic stress disorder. She knew it and she hated that word. Soldiers were supposed to have PTSD; brave men and women who fought in wars. Not people who have basically been on parking duty like her. She got all the bad and none of the glory.

The night overall was uneventful. Everyone talked about their progress or their slip-ups. Sayaka didn't have much to say, aside from the fact that she was still doing well. She felt a bit awkward at times; all these people saying how hard their lives were, like they couldn't go on, and she was just sitting there like "been there, done that! And still good!"

Being the beacon of hope was cool. She would never deny that. And feeling like she was an idol or a hero or something like that was even cooler. She always wondered if she deserved it.

She always wondered why she deserved to have everything she got, while Madoka died.

**XX**

Kyoko felt exhausted. The contractor's visit hadn't gone well. 600,000,000 yen was the lowest quote she got for repairing the church. She had no idea it had gotten so bad.

She flopped down on the ground in front of her father's tombstone; a beautifully carved stone that looked the exact same as it had seven years ago. She was careful to maintain the lonely tombstones whose families had forgotten the ones buried beneath them. Many of their families died in Walpurgisnacht. Others simply had moved on. At least she was better family than them, right?

She leaned against the tombstone, as she had done many times before. She looked to her left, seeing her mother's tombstone with a few decaying flowers she had left there a few months ago. She looked to her right, seeing her sister's with a little red ball that had deflated years ago and a few trinkets. It was a sad sight. She closed her eyes to block out the image that had been burned underneath her eyelids years ago.

Beyond her sister's grave was the only tombstone that had been destroyed by Walpurgisnacht. It was the closest one to the dead garden surrounding the cemetery. She had no idea who was rested there, because the grave looked like it had actually exploded. She had tried looking for all of the pieces of it once to put it back together, but some of them seemed to be missing. She figured it wasn't worth the effort and gave up. No one came to visit it anyways.

"What are you doing here so late?" A curious and familiar voice asked. Kyoko didn't need to open her eyes.

"What are _you_ doing here so late? It's a school night kiddo." Red eyes opened to stare up at her little sister, best friend, and partner in combat. Yuma didn't say anything, but sat down in front of her.

"Do you remember what my wish was?" The question irked Kyoko more than it should have at this point.

"Of course I remember, dumb ass. Six years and I'm still pissed at you for it." Yuma smiled sadly in response.

"I know. I wanted to help you. You know I can always sense when something is wrong with you, right?"

Kyoko knew it damn well. It was an eerie feeling knowing someone could partially read your mind from anywhere. It was incredibly convenient in battle, part of the reason they worked so well together. They hadn't understood what it was when Yuma first started being able to use this ability. Kyoko had figured that Yuma must just be able to tell what kind of food Kyoko was craving based on her "monthly cycle", so to speak. Once Kyubey had actually explained it to them, it disturbed her a bit. Yuma was so dependent on Kyoko and tied to her it was disgusting. Kyoko couldn't handle that kind of responsibility.

But she did her damned best anyways.

She sighed. "Yeah, I know."

"What's going on?" Blue eyes were looking imploringly into hers. She could tell they were trying to use magic to snoop it out by the ways her pupils dilated and contracted like a pulsing heart. Her own magic, enchantment did the same to hers when she used it. She looked away, irritated.

"Cut that out. It's nothing to worry about. I've got it."

"I might not be able to read your mind right now, but I know you well enough to know you're a shit liar."

"Watch your language."

"You don't watch yours."

Kyoko turned her eyes back to glare at her. "Don't talk back to me." She muttered. Yuma huffed, but otherwise said nothing.

"Can I help you with anything?" She asked that loaded question that Kyoko hated.

"No." She replied quickly. She decided to ignore the hurt look on Yuma's face.

"You really can't do anything about this. And it's not a big deal, I've got it, so there's nothing to worry about." She lied effortlessly. Maybe if she said it enough, she would believe it too. She could enchant herself. Yuma didn't seem to buy it though.

Kyoko stood up and ruffled Yuma's hair before offering her a hand. Yuma didn't protest to her hair being messed up and got up on her own. _Fuck, she's upset. _

Kyoko slung an arm around Yuma's shoulders as they walked, trying to avoid debris from the lonely, destroyed grave. She ignored the way Yuma tensed her shoulder blades together, like trying to give Kyoko's arm as little a space as possible to rest. Kyoko didn't let this deter her.

Yuma shrugged Kyoko's arms off and walked faster into the church. Kyoko slowed for a moment to give the girl a bit of distance before following her more closely. Yuma sat down on one of the surviving pews with a thud that resonated throughout the empty, partially destroyed church. She curled up, legs to chest and face down so Kyoko couldn't see her. _Oh dear God, please don't let her be crying. _

Kyoko could hear Yuma sniffle. She sighed. After all, Kyoko had basically told her she couldn't do what she had sold her soul to do.

"Sometimes I just don't understand you." Yuma said, trying to pretend she wasn't choking on her sobs. Kyoko furrowed her eyebrows as she sat down next to her so they were hip to hip. She slung her arm around her shoulder again, leaning her head against hers.

"What do you mean?"

"Who do you see as being your family, Kyoko?" Bright blue eyes flashed into her red ones angrily. She was definitely crying.

"Uhh…" Kyoko was confused. She couldn't tell where this was going.

"Fine, I'll rephrase that. What does it mean to be family, Kyoko?"

Kyoko was silent for a few moments, not really pondering the question at all. She was just trying to figure out what Yuma was getting at.

"Families love and help each other."

"We tell everyone I'm your sister, so that kind of makes us family! Let me help you!" She cried out.

"No, this isn't _like _that. It's got nothing to do with you, it's my-" She cut herself off, before she accidentally said 'actual', "first family. This is something that should stay between the four of us. It's not your problem."

"Your Dad murdered your Mom and sister and left you alone to starve, yet you're always crying on his grave. Do you really think he's family? Do you really believe he loved you?!"

Kyoko was taken aback briefly before nothing but anger flooded her vision. Before she knew it, she had stood up and slapped Yuma across the face.

"Don't say shit you know nothing about!" She yelled. The palm of her hand stung a bit. Yuma eyes were wide, surprised, tears still flowing from them.

"I had a family that didn't love me either. My Mom would hit me, saying it was my fault that Dad stayed out at bars hooking up with whores. She always made excuses for him to convince herself that he did love her."

"Those have nothing to do with each other. My father was a wonderful, loving man until I fucked everything up by making that wish. Your mother was just a stone cold bitch."

"Do you wish you could take that wish back? And everything that happened after?"

"Of course! Who wouldn't?!"

"You saved my life because of that wish. That witch would have killed me with my parents if it hadn't been for you. Do you regret that too?"

"Okay, aside from that obviously. Don't put words in my mouth." Kyoko groaned in frustration.

Yuma touched the side of her face tenderly and winced when she touched it.

"Sometimes it seemed like hitting me made Mom believe that my Dad really loved her. Did hitting me make you feel like your Dad loved you?" Yuma asked dejectedly. Kyoko's breath caught in her throat. _Fuck, I actually hit her. I haven't done that in years…_

It was true. The last time Kyoko had hit her was when Yuma had proudly declared that she became a magical girl. That was also the only time she had hit her until now.

"As long as it makes you feel better, it's ok." Yuma said quietly as she turned the other cheek to Kyoko. Kyoko noticed Yuma trembling a bit in fear, eyes shut tight and waiting to be hit. It was times like these that Kyoko wished she could travel back in time to before the witch killed Yuma's bitch of a mother so she could kill her herself. Kyoko sat down again and pulled Yuma into a half-hug, half-strangle sort of position. She couldn't figure out which she wanted to do more.

"Stop being an idiot. I'm sorry I hit you, ok?" Kyoko said quietly. "It was wrong of me to do that and it doesn't make me feel better at all."

They sat like that for a few minutes as Yuma's breath started to slow down. Kyoko checked a few times to make sure it was because she was calming down, and not because she couldn't breathe.

"I thought you said hitting idiots made you feel better." Her voice was slightly muffled by Kyoko's body.

"I like hitting other idiots, not _my _idiot." Kyoko smiled softly. She couldn't see Yuma's face, but she figured she was smiling a bit too from the way she snuggled a bit closer into her chest. Kyoko started to comb her fingers through Yuma's hair soothingly.

"Can I ask you something I've wanted to ask you for a long time? It might make you mad." Yuma asked timidly.

Kyoko sighed. "Go ahead." She was going to ask eventually anyways.

"Every time I see you crying in the cemetery, you're crying on your father's grave. Why not your mother's or your sister's? There was never any doubt that they loved you, by anyone's eyes."

Kyoko was quiet, pausing her hand. Her mind was blank. The sat like that for five minutes.

Kyoko started moving her fingers again, deciding to avoid the question she had no answer to.

* * *

Sayaka was exhausted. After getting home from the support group last night, she crashed. Worries, negative thoughts, and regrets kept her up almost all night.

"Sayaka, you idiot, what are you thinking?" She asked her reflection which looked worse for wear. At least it accurately reflected how she felt. It seemed to be the most honest thing about her all week.

She was a prostitute. There was no two ways about it. She was being paid to have sex with someone else (even though she might have had sex with said person without pay if she had been really, really drunk). Not only that, but she was doing it to get dirt on the people watching, so she wasn't even an _honest _one. She was the lowest of the low.

_"Just do whatever you have to do."_ Ryo's words echoed through her head.

She had never actually gotten all of the details of Ryo's undercover stories; no one ever really had. He was a sort of legend known across the entire force for taking down one of the city's worst mobsters, someone suspected to be one of Kurosawa's guys when he was only a few years older than Sayaka. Everyone knew he must have played dirty to be able to get that far, but no one ever asked what he did.

An image of Ryo having sex with a mob boss like Kurosawa flashed through her mind. She had to cringe, stifle a laugh, stifle a sob and splash her face with water again.

Her adrenaline had been pumping so hard on that first shift, she hadn't really been thinking too straight. She fucked everything up.

On the bright side, they would never assume that a cop would stoop to such depraved acts in order to get information….right?

Right. Because no one else in their right mind would do what she had done. Everyone else had more sense than her.

Maybe all those years of using really had fucked up her brain.

She splashed water on her face again so she couldn't tell what was water and what was tears.

She decided she wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep any time soon, so she found a stupid comedy movie online to watch. Those always calmed her down.

* * *

Kyoko was exhausted. She and Yuma decided to pick up a greasy pizza (got to hand it to the Americans; they know how to make good comfort food) and watched a stupid, overly violent movie. Yuma had picked it, but Kyoko knew that Yuma was hoping to choose something Kyoko would want to watch. Kyoko watched violent action movies to calm down. Yuma liked to watch dramas.

Kyoko was displeased to find that watching someone getting their head violently sawed off did nothing to ease her nerves. That usually did the trick.

Yuma got up and returned with a large bowl full of sweets and a bottle of juice.

She could tell the movie wasn't working too.

Kyoko grunted her thanks and continued her high-calorie binge. Thank god for magic and exercise.

The movie had a predictable ending where the only two survivors, who were always hinted at as being love interests wound up together and walking away from the carnage behind them….or some bullshit like that. Kyoko had stopped paying attention after about 20 minutes. So had Yuma evidently, who was doodling things on the tablet Kyoko had bought her for Christmas last year.

Kyoko looked over Yuma's shoulder to see a sketch of an obese Kyoko wearing a pointy witch hat and was surrounded by flying candy wrappers and walking pizza boxes. Yuma smirked and saved it as "The Fat-Ass Witch".

"Oh you little-" She was cut off by Yuma laugh-shrieking and running away, Kyoko grinning and hot on her heels.

* * *

Sayaka was grateful to not have anything to do that morning. Ryo finally decided that there was only so much running through the same information over and over again was going to do. He also decided that he wanted Sayaka to have full concentration on her undercover work instead of worrying about parking duty.

Sayaka was sadder than she cared to admit that she wouldn't be wearing the blue police uniform anymore that she had worked so hard to get to wear. Instead, she would be wearing next to nothing at all…something that a lot of junkies did.

In any case, she got to sleep in which she really needed. She hadn't slept well at all.

Her second shift was tonight, and she figured a strip club would be bustling on a Friday. She would have to look her best.

She wondered if the Kurosawas, Miyamotos, or Watanabe would even be there.

Part of her hoped they wouldn't, and they would never come back again so Ryo had no reason to keep her at the club.

Part of her secretly hoped she could just be on parking duty again.

* * *

Kyoko was grateful to not have anything to do that morning. Yuma was being a whiny little ass, claiming to have period pains and that she had to stay home. Kyoko called her on her bluff (they lived together so they were pretty much perfectly synced, and Kyoko had finished hers last week so _nice try, brat_).

Kyoko fell back to sleep right after Yuma left for school. Okay, maybe a bit before that. Fine, basically right after the lying-period conversation or whatever. Kyoko groggily hoped she actually went to school like she was supposed to and didn't hide out in a hotel or somewhere. She had taught her how to live the life of a street rat a little too well.

After properly waking up at 2:00 pm, she decided she had to get down to business. She had no choice but to get a financial plan put together to pay off the church repairs as soon as possible.

She quickly entered in Tomi's newest pay-as-you-go cellphone number into her own pay-as-you-go phone. It was a major pain in the ass changing them every two weeks, but it was better safe than sorry.

"Moshi moshi Kyoko! How can I help you?" He was sounding oddly chipper. It pissed her off.

"Moshi moshi. I was wondering if I could get a few extra shifts? I'm a bit short for rent this month." This was a lie and they both knew it. It was a code in case anyone could hear them.

"I think I can make something work. We have a few stag parties coming in which we could use your help at." More code, meaning that there were some more potential jobs coming up. That's interesting; it was usually lucky if she could get one job every two weeks. She just did one a few nights ago.

"Sounds great. Are there any special requests the patrons had for this party?"

"Actually, there were. Are you free now to come in and discuss them?" Urgent, eh? The pay cheques should be higher then.

"Can do. See you in thirty minutes."

* * *

Sayaka adjusted her wig again before doing a last time once-over of her outfit. She was virtually unrecognizable. She liked that. It was easier to pretend it wasn't her.

_For god's sakes, Sayaka stop being a little drama queen! _

Part of her felt like feeling like a prostitute shouldn't be considered dramatic. A logical part also reminded her that she had probably done worse before.

She was feeling so damn conflicted it was physically painful. Her stomach was in knots.

She quickly left through the back door of her building, checking to make sure no one was watching. Realistically, she shouldn't have to worry about the possibility of being watched yet, but you could never be too careful.

The subway ride was uneventful, aside from ignoring the leers of a few (disgustingly) older male riders. She felt the need to clench her legs closer together to be safe.

She walked into the dressing room at 6:30, exactly half an hour before she had to start. Her perfect timing didn't make her feel as proud as she thought it would. She quietly put on even more makeup, as it would seem suspicious if she didn't do any touch-ups in the dressing room and went to pick out an outfit.

"Precious! I heard you had an eventful first shift." Sweetie said with a wink. Sayaka blushed and looked away.

"No kidding. The bitch went up stage without any fucking regards for the rules and stole the best tippers!" A girl with lavender hair who she didn't recognize snapped. Sweetie went to try to calm her down. Sayaka turned away to pick through the outfits.

"It's nice to see her like that with someone other than me." A calm voice said from the other side of the rack. Sayaka pulled apart some of the clothes to peek through and see the owner of the voice.

She was speechless.

The girl looked just like the transfer student, Akemi Homura.

Well, actually, no she didn't. She had long straight black hair, sure. Her eyes were brown though instead of that sort of grey-lavender Akemi had. This woman also had a much narrower mouth and fuller lips that looked like she was stung by a bee, as well as a more aristocratic and pointed nose. All things considered, her face seemed to have a disproportionate skin to facial feature ratio. She had an intriguing appearance, and not in a bad way.

Maybe it was just her demeanor that reminded her of the transfer student.

When she looked at the girl's outfit, her jaw dropped.

"That's beautiful!" It actually was. She wore long, violet satin robes over a surprisingly tasteful black dress which still showed off a fair bit of toned leg. The robes reminder her a lot of a traditional kimono. They also highlighted that she had very, very wide hips.

Now that Sayaka really looked at her, this woman was kind of funny-looking.

"Thank you. I never really cared much for the skimpier outfits." As she said that, a girl wearing a cliché nurse's uniform passed. "Or the sexualized stereotypes."

Sayaka hadn't seen a cop uniform yet, and she was glad. It would probably pain her.

"Yeah…I don't think I could pull off the classy look like you can. I wish I could though."

"Are you new here? I haven't seen you yet. I'm not here very often, so perhaps we have just missed each other." Sayaka realized that maybe 'calm' wasn't the best way to describe her tone. It was sort of monotonous…borderline robotic. Maybe that's what reminded her so much of the transfer student.

"Yeah, this is my second shift. Ah, sorry! I'm Rin. Nice to meet you." She said with a bow.

"Your stage name or actual name?"

"Oh, right. I'm Precious. Nice to meet you." She said with a bow again. The woman made a sound of mirth, but her face didn't move to reflect it.

"I'm Geisha. Pleasure to make your acquaintance."

She was really formal for a stripper. It seemed odd to her. There was a silence that did not seem to bother Geisha any, but definitely bothered Sayaka some.

"So…how long have you been working here for?"

"The past three years, but I only work every week or two."

"Ah…that sounds nice, actually." It did. Sayaka wouldn't mind only being part-time….very part-time.

"Do you not enjoy work here?"

"No, no! Of course, I had a great first shift here-"

"Hell yeah she did, she got luck-ay!" Lady screamed behind them. The other girls in the room hollered in jest.

"Precious, come over here. We need to get out there soon. Koko's running late so she'll meet us up there." Lady said while pulling Sayaka away.

"Up where?"

"The private room. Same as last time." Lady winked.

"Ah, right!" Sayaka tried to ignore the sinking feeling in her gut. This should be a good thing.

"Which room is that?" Geisha asked. Sayaka noticed Lady bristle.

"Room B." She replied tersely. It looked like there was some bad blood here. "Anyways, Precious, have you found what you want to wear yet? I think you would pull this off well." She shoved a pink Lolita dress into Sayaka's arms. Sayaka thought the thing looked tacky. "Go put it on. Your makeup and hair look fine. Let's go."

"We still have ten minutes before we need to-"

"Let's _go_, Precious." Lady repeated. Sayaka went to one of the backrooms meant for girls who were shy about changing in front of others and shot Geisha a quick apologetic look. _What the hell was that about? _

After getting changed, Lady led Sayaka upstairs to the same room from two nights ago.

"Did Koko go over some of the rules we have here? Like, the unofficial ones?" Lady asked.

"Uh, yeah, a few. Why?"

"Because that cow you were talking to is the epitome of why you should follow them. Especially the one about _not stealing clients_." Lady said with gritted teeth.

"Did she do that?"

"Yeah. And she still does. She has a way with the rich ones in particular, which are the best clients. She stole one from me a few years ago. She stole clients from so many girls that we had made a petition to get her fired. Too many clients liked her though, so all we could do was get her down to barely working here at all. Watch her, because I have no doubt in my mind she will try to snap up baby Kurosawa from right under your nose. She can't be trusted."

"Is that so?" The robotic voice echoed behind them. Sayaka noticed Lady tense again.

"You know it, bitch. Why are you coming with us?" She asked in a way that made it sound like she wasn't asking a question. "Just know that James is mine, and if you come close to him I will rip your long, pretty hair right out." _Holy shit!_

"That will not be necessary. I am actually going to be servicing my regular client, Miyamoto-san. Geisha replied with a hint of what Sayaka supposed was an attempt at a smile. "So you have caught the attention of this crowd, have you? Has anybody…._told _you about who they are?" Geisha spoke to Sayaka directly. "They tip well, but they are not the safest bunch to be around."

"Sango warned me about that. They're a bunch of oddballs!" _Play it off, play it cool._

"And you are still alright with them? From what I have heard, you are quite a talented dancer and could likely catch the attention of a client who is less risky by nature, but tips just as well. Perhaps a businessman could be better?"

"Thank you, but I'm alright with these guys. I think they just take some getting used to is all." Sayaka smiled. _Play it off, play it cool, play dumb._

When she entered, the familiar guests made a sort of sound of greeting, but clearly weren't paying them much attention. The parties of the room were huddled together, speaking quickly. Sayaka noticed that only the Miyamotos and Watanabe were present.

Suki's eyes snapped up. "Where's Koko?" _That's a damn good question, where the fuck is she? _

"I'm sorry I don't know Miyamoto-san." Sayaka apologized. She fiddled with the frills of her dress, to make her look cuter and because she was nervous. She wasn't quite sure what to do without Kyoko or the Kurosawas here.

"I would suppose she is with Kurosawa-sama. Will he not be joining us today?" Geisha asked as she snuggled in next to Tsubasa, stroking the arm of his suit.

"He should be coming. I would guess that you are right about them though." He smiled warmly to her. Sayaka was pretty sure that was the most she ever heard him say.

"Indeed." James said, eyes overcast with an emotion Sayaka couldn't place. "Well, when the cat's away, the mice will play! We're all in agreement then?" James asked, clearly to the twins sitting adjacent to him.

"Of course." Suki agreed with her brother quietly nodding beside her. _Fuck, I bet I should have been in the room for their conversation. _

"Great. Well, since we're waiting. Precious, why don't you do a little dance for us! I'll pick the song." James smiled before choosing a sultry song off his ipod which was already connected to the small speakers in the corner of the room.

* * *

Kyoko adjusted her ponytail again before doing a last once-over of her outfit. The meeting went longer than she thought it would, so she didn't get much time to get ready. That, and all the good outfits were gone. She picked the tacky, slutty cop outfit to be ironic.

She was not surprised, but glad to hear that Kurosawa had been pestering Tomi for some time about getting more work from Kyoko.

"I think it's now or never if we want to take control." He had gestured over to his son, who had sat quietly beside him throughout the entire meeting. "There aren't many on their side left after the big raid from the feds last month, and if we wait too much longer they will recruit enough to put their numbers back up."

Kyoko remembered hearing about that. Someone got some insider information on Kurosawa's rivals, a gang that called themselves "The Black Dragons". They had been around before Kurosawa came, but never got very big; they had been more a group of low-level thugs who robbed convenience stores and dealt marijuana. They exploded and became more organized after Walpurgisnacht though.

One rumour had said that it was someone from the club that tipped off the feds. Kyoko doubted it, since the Dragons basically never came here. This was Kurosawa territory, as much as she hated to admit it.

"I agree with you wholeheartedly Kurosawa-sama."

"Since we have you on board, we can move forward with our plan. Saturday night two weeks from tomorrow, we will be hitting the last ten bosses of the dragons. They are all going to be in their homes, so it will be a long night for you. Our men will be getting them at these locations and times." Kurosawa said as he passed her a note scrawled with geographic coordinates and army times between the latitude and longitude coordinates. Nobody else would have any idea what this was, but Kyoko was familiar with this trick. She was pissed because she would have to dig that old GPS out again…almost as pissed as she was that she would probably need Yuma's help to bait a witch to follow them to all of those houses. They were spread out across town! Most witches don't even like to move that much.

"We want you following about twenty minutes behind our hit team. You don't have to clean all of the scenes, just the last one; we have some other guys who will do that for you so you can keep following. They aren't as good at disposing of bodies as you are, but they can at least clean alright. We'll supply you with a car at the port that night at 23:00 hours. After you're done, bring the car to the train station on 42nd. Leave it there with the keys inside. Make sure you don't leave any traces of you or any of the bodies. Understand?"

"Yeah, do you think I'm an idiot?" _Of course I know not to leave any traces asshole. _

"Excellent. Thank you for your help Ophelia." Kurosawa smiled. He smile morphed into a taunting malicious smirk when he saw Tomi's displeased expression. Always worried about the bugs in the scarcely furnished room that he checked for thrice a day.

Kurosawa was going to make her work hard; that was for sure. But a good offer was promised: 12,500,000 yen upfront, another after the job was done. That certainly wouldn't be enough to cover all of the repair costs, but it could at least give her a good start. Plus, Tomi had some connections to crooked stock brokers that may be able to help her double her money in weeks, which could help move her along too.

She entered room B confidently, ignoring how sticky the latex boots made her calves feel.

"Theeeerrrrrre's Koko. We were wondering where you were." Suki crooned. "We missed you." Her mock pout drove Kyoko up the wall, but she ignored it.

"I'm sure you did. There's a lot to miss, aint there?" She winked. She looked around quickly, letting her eyes stay on Rin's body sliding down the pole longer than she had to, and was unpleasantly surprised to see the robot bitch in the corner. She sometimes got to fool herself into believing the client-stealer had quit with how few shifts she actually got.

"Geisha. It's been _forever_." She taunted. "How've you been? Getting by?"

"I have been very well, thank you Koko-kun." _Bitch! _"And yourself? I trust you have also been well and plenty supported financially and emotionally?"

This weirdo always confused Kyoko. She was sure her facial expression made it clear that she was confused. She talked weird and acted weird in Kyoko's opinion, and had no idea how she was so successful with the clients. Kyoko always suspected that clients mistook her utter lack of people skills and ability to not have a stick up her butt as being classy and mysterious…something most of the girls here were admittedly not.

"Err, yeah, definitely."

"She makes it rain every night she's here, and _she's _here most nights." Lady boasted.

"Oh girls, stop this cattiness! There's plenty to go around!" James smiled broadly, hands full of large bills while he gestured to the table full of mostly eaten appetizers and untouched alcohol.

"Indeed. Thank you for your generosity Watanabe-sama." Geisha gave a discrete bow that Kyoko found obnoxious. She didn't care if it had anything to do with her damn stage character or not.

"Always so formal! Please, just James is fine. I was never really good with all the Japanese formalities."

"You're laid back and relaxed like an all-American cowboy." Lady swooned, leaning in towards him with hands inching dangerous close to his crotch. _For fuck's sakes…_

"My apologies James-sama. I just meant to be as courteous to you as possible." She bowed again. _Is she capable of speaking without bowing? _

"Speaking of being courteous, isn't some service in order." Kurosawa turned his gaze, or rather his leer to Kyoko. She plastered a half-sneer, half-smile on her face that almost looked like her trademark toothy smirk.

"I dunno. Isn't payment in order?"

Kurosawa laughed, handing her a 10,000 note. She took it as she crawled onto his lap, mind wandering off. And eyes wandering off too to the blonde sensually writhing on the floor by the pole. And her eyes weren't the only ones that had been watching.

"Father, would you mind if I excused myself for a moment?" The younger Kurosawa asked, voice almost inaudible.

"You're not needed at the moment." His father dismissed with a wave of his hand, his own eyes not leaving Kyoko's small breasts. She chose to pretend he wasn't looking there while she moved rhythmically in his lap. His son nodded, only to Kyoko's notice.

"Rin, could you come with me? I'd like a private show please." There were groans of disapproval from the other clients in the room. Kyoko wasn't happy herself, having lost a good distraction, but kept quiet. Rin nodded and left the room with the son of her employer and tormentor.

"Get closer." Kurosawa growled out. She did as told, and cringed internally when she felt the tent in his pants rub against her.

"So what took you so long coming in?" James asked casually. Nobody in the room would fool themselves into believing that it was actually just an attempt at small talk though.

"None of your concern, my friend. Just chatting with my son." He smiled, crows' feet crinkling in a deceptively friendly manner.

"How is his…apprenticeship going?" Suki prodded.

"It's coming along. Not as quickly as his brother's had, but it's coming." He sighed.

"Are you planning on giving him control of a segment of operations anytime soon?"

"Why are you so insistent on asking me my business strategy? I hope you're not trying to get information from me to sell to my competitors." He smiled. It was a smile that promised a great deal of pain. Kyoko turned away on his lap, so it was her back to his chest. She hated looking at his face when he was talking 'business', as they called it. She hated looking at his face, period. _The things I'll do for money…_

_"Why don't you just use your magic to get him to give you everything you need?" _A familiar, androgynous voice asked. Her eyes snapped up to see the strange feline-ferret creature she despised staring at her from the armrest next to her least-favourite human robot.

_"Get out." _She mentally snapped. She did her best to keep her composure. She was great at what she did, sure, but she might get let go if anyone suspected her of schizophrenia. And she was sure tempted to skewer that damn white rat thing that had ruined her life so long ago.

_"No need for hostilities Kyoko. I'm merely asking a question. Why don't you use your magic? You're still fairly proficient with that form of enchantment magic, aren't you?" _

_"Fuck off and leave me alone. I'm busy. I actually have a job now." _

_"Do you enjoy it? I have detected strong signals of disgust, distress, and humiliation when you are here. Why do you subject yourself to something like this when you don't have to?" _Of course she didn't like this job; if she were on her own, she would have never done something like this. But she wasn't on her own.

_"You know damn well why I do." _It was baiting her. She wasn't going to take it. Not right here. Not right now.

Kyubey had been asking these questions for years, especially when she first started working. The first year had been particularly rough; she wished a few times that she could make a second contract with Kyubey, sort of like taking out a second mortgage. She would have made the same mistake she made the first time, and made a wish for someone else's benefit. That someone else had made a wish for her benefit, after all.

The strange creature flicked its tail. That was probably the closest it would ever come to expressing irritation. Kyoko didn't trust people or things that didn't show emotion; she felt like they were hiding something.

That was probably why she didn't like the overdressed woman across from her, who was now staring at her.

"Is everything alright, Koko?"

"Just fine."

* * *

Sayaka wasn't completely sure what to expect, but she doubted she would enjoy this much. All things considered, the younger Kurosawa was much less…creepy than his father? She wasn't sure if that was the word she would use, but she liked him more than his infamous parent.

As they crowded into the cramped booth like the one they had been in just two days earlier, she began to feel very awkward.

"So, uh…how are you?" _Oh shit. Strippers aren't supposed to talk, are they? _

His lips, which looked so much like his father's, started to quiver. Then he started sobbing.

"Ah…uh…I'm sorry! We don't need to talk!" She rushed to hug him, unsure of what to do. _Do I try to smush my boobs in his face, or what? _She sort of jerked her chest upwards.

"No, no." The choked out between sobs. "I'm sorry, this is…fuck." He said aggressively rubbing at his eyes with the sleeves of his now wrinkling shirt.

"It's ok. It's ok. We all have those days." She tried to be comforting. She was sitting next to him, but only half on the seat as it was only designed for one person to sit on it. She tried to her best to ignore her protesting back. She just held him and rubbed his back in circles, like her mom used to do for her whenever she had nightmares as a kid.

"I know I'm not supposed to, but can I hug you back?" He asked quietly, nervously. A hug was innocent enough. She nodded.

Being hugged tightly while being only half on the seat was really uncomfortable.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Ah…I shouldn't but…"

"It's ok. I won't tell. Promise." She smiled sincerely. _Maybe. _

"It's just family stuff."

"Your dad seems like a…unique individual." She would have used other words, such as corrupt, immoral, an asshole, etcetera but figured that would be a good way to stir up some bad feelings.

"He's a terrible person. It's ok to say it."

"Ah…well, I don't really know him well personally, so I don't think I can say." _From his suspected crimes, I can though. _"I guess I can't really say much about you either. But from my first impression, you seem like a really nice person to me. I guess the apple can fall pretty far from the tree, huh?"

He scoffed a bit.

"It can, I guess. My father wishes I didn't though. I wasn't even supposed to be the one taking over."

"You weren't?"

"No…my younger brother was. He was always the more ambitious and business-savvy of the two of us."

"What happened?"

"His hobby was drag racing. He died in an accident two months ago. Crashed into the wall of a parkade going 90 kilometers per hour. He watched too many American movies and thought he could do it."

"I'm so sorry for your loss." She said, with genuine sympathy. She had never lost an immediate family member, but she felt like she had lost a sister a few years ago.

"Thank you. It was more of a loss for my father. My brother and I didn't get along much. I personally thought he was a reckless idiot, and he proved that right."

Sayaka nodded, unsure of what to say. _Is agreeing with that offensive? I have no idea what to do right now. _Even though Sayaka attended plenty of rehab sessions with people pouring their hearts out, she still had no idea how to properly comfort someone.

"Have you ever felt like you're doing the wrong thing with your life?" He asked quietly.

"I'm a stripper." She answered in a deadpan voice. He let out a brief, quiet laugh.

"Good point."

They were quiet for a few moments that felt longer to Sayaka. Her back really was not supposed to stay this way for an extended period of time.

"I was never supposed to be in the family business. My father ignored me for years because I had no aptitude or interest for it. I like it that way." He whispered. "I just finished school to be a chiropractor. That's all I ever wanted to do. I was going to open my own practice." He looked down at her. "Speaking of which, you should not be sitting like that, you're going to completely misalign your lower back. Here." He manoeuvered her so she was sitting much more comfortably on his lap. "Do you mind sitting like this?"

"It's way more comfortable than before." She answered honestly. She couldn't feel anything…hard pressing against her so she didn't mind this position as much as she had her last shift.

"You wanted to be a chiropractor? Really? I thought kids wanted to be firemen, or astronauts, or…" _Don't say cops, don't say cops _"dancers!"

"I was a weird kid." He smiled. "We got into a car accident when I was very young. I got whiplash, so I had to have a chiropractor fix me up. I thought he did cool work, so I wanted to do it too. Did you want to be a dancer?"

_Don't say you wanted to be a cop. _

"I wanted to help people, I guess. So maybe something more like a nurse or a doctor?" _Sounds more like Madoka_ _than me_.

"What happened?"

"A ton of shit." She hadn't prepared much of a background for Yamasaki Rin yet…not that far back anyways. He nodded, dropping the topic which she appreciated.

"What's it like? Working for your father's business?" She wasn't even trying to get information for the force, at this point.

"Hard. I'm not sure if you know this, but your boss Tomi is paranoid of people watching him, or trying to kill him. I heard he can't even sleep for more than 15 minutes at a time. My father is confident that he has…or is going to have the city under his thumb. I think I'm somewhere in between them."

"I'm honestly not sure what you guys do…" _Liar. _"But I kind of got the impression it was…not completely legal?"

"That's one way of putting it."

"What do you do?" _If I can get something like a confession, something, anything… _she wasn't sure if she was pushing to get his family's operation shut down, or just to no longer have a reason to come here. He sighed.

"You're a nice person. I can tell. I would hate for someone innocent like you" _Ha! _"to get caught up in all of this. Trust me, it's for your own safety."

"That bad, huh?"

"Yeah. That bad."

They were quiet again. But at least now her back didn't hurt as much.

"So is the pressure getting you down today?"

"Something like that."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Maybe if she was lucky, he would want to vent about them.

"No. No there's nothing you can do at all. There's nothing anybody good can do."

They sat together for twenty minutes in silence with his head resting in the crook of her neck. Her back was hurting by the end of it.

* * *

Kyoko wasn't completely sure what to expect, but she doubted she would enjoy it very much. Shortly after Rin left with the baby crime lord, Kurosawa excused himself to take an urgent phone call. She vaguely remembered the biblical story of the man left in the lion's den; her father used to tell her that story. She sort of doubted that her faith in God would help her much here though.

"Geisha, Lady, could you get us two orders of chicken wings and a round of sakes for the table? Don't come back until you have them, please." James asked pleasantly. _Shit. _

Lady did not look pleased to be dismissed with her far-from-favourite coworker, but she did as told. As soon as the door closed, though no one moved or said anything the tension in the room thickened.

"I assume you won't say anything, being the good little pawn you are, but what were you talking about with the Kurosawas and Tomi?" Suki. Of course she had to throw that thing of being a pawn in there. Kyoko was surprised to see Tsubasa and James throw Suki dirty looks.

"You assumed right."

"Please forgive my sister's lack of manners Kyoko. She has been very…on edge recently. Particularly with Kurosawa's recent behaviour." She said nothing, in an effort to not make it evident that she had no idea what they were talking about. She thought he was being just as much of an asshole as ever.

"He has been trying to take control of all of our operations, see. Without our consent. And without an investment either." James explained.

"Not even any brains to make things run better." Suki added.

"So you're pissed off. How's that my problem?"

"Do you enjoy working for him?" Tsubasa asked with what seemed like innocent curiousity, but she knew better.

"None of your business."

"So you do not, correct?"

"I didn't say yes or no. Don't put words in my mouth. What I do for him and how I like it is my and his business, and ours alone."

"You're asking the wrong questions, Tsubasa-kun. Kurosawa may not be the one to target." James smiled. "Do you like getting paid what you do?" That piqued her interest. It clearly showed.

"Again. That is our business."

"That's great, but we all know what you get paid. We also know what you're going to get paid in two weeks for cleaning up after all of those Black Dragon corpses. We also know you're only getting forty percent of the costs Kurosawa's paying to cover everything up. Did you know that too? That seems like it could be your business."

She was beyond pissed. She was furious. But she tried to keep her cool.

"No. No I did not know that."

"Of course you didn't. After all, the only reason Tomi's even involved is to keep secrets. They're not as well kept as they think they are." Suki said, getting up and walking towards Kyoko.

"It seems ridiculous to think that Tomi gets sixty percent of the profits for your work when he doesn't even keep his side of the deal particularly well. You're the star of this operation. We _all _know that. Don't you feel that way too, Ophelia?" Something about the way she whispered that name in her ear set even further on edge.

"Kurosawa is a lot dumber than he thinks he is. He's reckless and greedy, which we look down upon, though that may surprise you. We all know" James gestured to himself and the twins "that the only reason he's done as well as he has is because he's always had the right people doing his dirty work for him. And he's never been afraid to throw them under the bus."

"A real leader should be on the floor helping their workers and taking as many risks as possible for them, in my opinion. He's just a fucking coward." Suki sneered. Kyoko had heard about Suki's participative efforts. She always assumed she did it because she was a sadistic cunt. _Maybe both. _

"Without the right people, his whole house of cards is going to collapse. It's not going to stay up. Do you really want to be there when it falls? It would be so sad for poor…what's her name…Yumi, Yuma is it? It would be so sad for young Yuma to lose her onee-chan." Kyoko leapt forward, hands grabbing Watanabe's collar and holding him off the ground.

"How do you know about her?!" She screamed. She didn't have a mirror, but she was sure her eyes were wide and crazed with fear.

"Sakura Kyoko" Suki started with some kind of emotion in her tone Kyoko couldn't quite place; it almost sounded ironic. That was odd. She had never heard her call her by name. "Don't worry. No one will touch her. You have my word that I will even make _sure _of that. We _never _touch family."

James raised his hands in surrender, though it looked pretty insincere to Kyoko. "You have my word. But you may not have Kurosawa's."

"He knows about-" She began distrustfully.

"He gets dirt on everyone. Spies on them. Finds out what makes them tick." Tsubasa began.

"He's known about her since you started here when you were fifteen." Suki finished…with something akin to pity. That stung like nothing Kyoko had ever felt from one of her jabs before. She had no idea they even knew her real age. The fact that Kurosawa was a client of hers since the start became even more disturbing.

"Why did he never say anything, huh? Why did you _never _say anything if you're any better?" She hissed. She felt like a wounded animal against a wall.

"You never gave anyone a reason to say anything. And I can guarantee you that we would never hurt your sister. As I said: we don't touch family. I'm not sure if that means anything to you or not. At least you know that we know. That was more important to me than you actually joining us as a direct employee with a complete cut." Kyoko didn't believe Suki's ethical bullshit for a second.

"The human trafficker, the one who literally kidnaps girls and sells them into the sex trade has morals?"

"I never said I was a good person. I don't care about people like that. I care about people I know and their families. Beyond that, things get too complicated. Don't pretend you care about every person you pass on the street either."

There was a quiet, nearly inaudible beep from Tsubasa's phone.

"Someone's coming. Stop talking."

Surely enough, twenty seconds later Rin and baby Kurosawa came back in. Shortly followed by Lady and Robobitch with food and a very, very smug looking Kurosawa.

"Well, now that we're all back, how about a show ladies?" He asked with a shit-eating grin and prominent erection.

"I would rather all of you lovely ladies leave for a few moments, if you would not mind." Watanabe asked genially. "You are all lovely, trustworthy ladies I know, but there are some dirty things you shouldn't have to listen to."

"Everyone except for the two leave. They put on a show while we talk. Surely we can multitask, can't we James? I thought you Americans loved to do everything at once."

James sighed. It was clear he knew he couldn't win.

"Fine. Precious, Koko, if you will." Geisha and Lady left the room quietly and politely, as they have been conditioned to do here. The door shut as Kyoko led a surprisingly hesitant Rin to the stage. "About this rat problem you have Kurosawa-san…"

"Are you ok with this? You seem nervous." Kyoko whispered as she put in a slow, seductive sounding jazz that she hoped would lessen the tension in the room. She wasn't sure. Music was never really her thing.

"Yeah! Yeah, of course. Let's do this!" Her enthusiasm seemed very misplaced for this situation, but someone eager was better than a dead starfish. Kyoko wasn't going to pretend that she fully believed her for a second though.

"Oh god, I just looked at what you're actually wearing." She said, looking in horror at the cop outfit.

"A cop and a child. We should coordinate better next time. I think there's a prisoner outfit downstairs that should fit you." She replied noncommittally. Truthfully, she didn't really care. She just wanted something to get her mind off of Kurosawa, and there was a curvaceous blonde right in front of her literally waiting to be touched.

"You realize this man is a cop, yes? You can't just kill him. That would raise far too many suspicions." James prodded Kurosawa, ignoring the spectacle they were putting on. It was a bit frustrating, because it seemed like Rin was ignoring their spectacle too.

"Come here." She ordered discretely. She didn't even bother to waste time with quick gentle kisses. She went straight to biting and hair pulling and grabbing body parts rougher than she should have.

_Do you enjoy it? _

She could block it out. She could block it all out.

"Of course I knew that. I check everyone, you know that. This was a good way to give the pigs a sense of security. I know where his family lives. He has a pregnant wife and four year old son. We can use all of this to our advantage."

Her ruby eyes flashed up to find emerald open with horror. That's right. This was the first time she heard them talk real strategy, wasn't it?

"But he wasn't supposed to find out about Tuesday's shipment. What am I supposed to tell my people in the Philippines? To call it off? To stay at risk but housing the load for an extra few days? To make another bribe to the harbour officials? This puts us at risk of a major loss, both financially and of man power."

"Either ignore them or leave." She said from above her. Rin stammered below.

"I will take care of things here. You will take care of things there. That's our arrangement so do something. I can't control the occasional slip ups of some of my lower staff, but I can guarantee you that this will be dealt with swiftly and appropriately."

"No one will judge you if you leave." She felt awkward essentially sitting on top of this clearly distressed new girl whose neck was now splotchy and red with hickeys and bites (_oops_). Was she supposed to comfort her or…?

"I can block it out. I can block it all out." She nodded earnestly. Kyoko winced inside. This girl was about as ok as she was.

"Is everything ok over there?" James asked. _Shit. _"I think it would be better if you two left."

"Maybe you're right. My apologies girls. Come back in five minutes with a dry martini for me." He said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"N..no! It's fine! Really!" With a sort of agility Kyoko hadn't expected, Rin sprung up knocking Kyoko onto her back and bumping their heads painfully in the process. Kyoko reached up to touch her forehead where she could feel an impressive lump forming, but a blonde head was already in the way kissing with fervor. While she appreciated the passion and enthusiasm, it was clear to Kyoko that this girl had it for all of the wrong reasons.

"You can stop Rin." Baby Kurosawa said quietly. It was enough to make her come up for a breath and look at him. A few tear drops fell onto Kyoko's face. Looking closely, it wasn't obvious to others she was crying. Her eyes looked amazingly clear. But Kyoko could tell and it was enough for her to know that she had to get this girl out of here before any more drama occurred.

"Maybe we can keep going another time." Kyoko said with a wolfish grin, aimed at both her show partner and the crowd. With a quick nip of her new kouhai's lips, she pushed them both upwards and ushered them out of the room as quickly as possible.

"I'm really, really sorry." She barely heard muttered behind them as the door was closed.

"Come on. Let's get you to the dressing room. We can get you cleaned up a bit."

* * *

That was terrible. That was absolutely terrible. She fucked up so badly and all she wanted to do was call her Mom and cry. She broke down in the change room.

"Well. You've had some eventful first shifts." Kyoko said conversationally. She looked in the mirror to see the older girl's reflection. She was rubbing her forehead, which had a nasty looking bump on it and had her eyes focused on the ground. _It's nice of her to try…_

"I'm really sorry for freaking out." Sayaka said sniffling and rubbing away her tears. "I just wasn't expecting something like that."

"Are you sure you still want to do this? You're going to hear things like this and worse. No one will hold anything against you if you leave. Seriously. It's a revolving door of workers with those guys and they know it. They really, truly, don't care." There was a second's pause. "And they _definitely _won't go after your family or anything if you're just a stripper. Uh, not saying that you're _just _a stripper, but to them you are, but you know, you're more than that and…uh…" _She's trying damn hard it's cute. _

"I get what you're saying. I appreciate it. Thank you. But…." _I need to be there to find out more things like that so I can warn my coworkers and their families when they are in danger? I need to tell them now! It's not only me! _

She was about to puke. She could feel it. Oh god, she was about to puke.

"Could I speak to her for a moment, Koko?" Geisha asked. "Privately?"

"Why should I let you do that?" She seemed to challenge.

"I mean this as kindly as possible, but when you first arrived, that set of clients seemed like a type you would have already been familiar with and therefore more adaptable to. I can see Precious here has not encountered this type, and neither had I when I first started. I thought that perhaps I could relate to her more familiarly than you could." It struck Sayaka as an odd and unintentionally rude way of saying 'I think I can relate to her more than you could because you are a sketchy individual and we are not'. Kyoko seemed to think so too.

"Fine. I'll be back in two minutes to check up on her. We need to go back soon. And I need to get him a dry martini." She remembered with a snap of her fingers and walked to the main area to get the drink ready. As soon as the door closed…

"You need to consider your next course of action very carefully. I was not there so I cannot say how they may be interpreting what happened, but you should be very, very cautious."

"I know, I know I messed up. I just…wasn't expecting that is all. I can keep it in better in the future."

"There may not be a future if you make the wrong move or say the wrong thing. I don't know what they were thinking sending you there when you're so young and inexperienced." Again, unintentionally rude. It rubbed her the wrong way, but she tried to shrug it off.

"I think Ky-uh, Koko's right. I'm just a stripper. They won't go after my family or anything if I seem uncomfortable. I'll just get fired is all."

"You are missing the point completely."

"No, I think you're reading too far into this. I appreciate your concern, I do, but I'll be fine! Uh…they haven't gone after stripper's families before, have they?"

"I am not familiar with that group of clients killing ay workers here, but I have heard of others who have killed strippers outside of clubs, either for leisure or political purposes if they feared they knew too much. It is a very real risk to you." _Ah…well then. _

Kyoko came back holding a drink.

"Are you done now? We need to go back."

Geisha nodded and left the room. It was only Kyoko and Sayaka.

"Can I ask you what may be a ridiculous question?" Sayaka asked.

"Go for it."

"Do you think they're going to kill me for leisure or political purposes after what just happened?"

Kyoko blinked at her.

"Uh…what?"

"Do you think they're going to kill me for leisure or political purposes after what just happened?"

"Ah. I was hoping I had heard that wrong. No, no I don't think they'll kill you for…leisure or political purposes, did you say? Fucking hell, what did Robobitch tell you?"

"That if I act too freaked out or shady or whatever, they may kill me for leisure or political purposes."

"Gotcha…I guess. No, they're good with the whole don't-kill-strippers thing. If someone has to be fired for getting freaked out or knowing too much, I take care of that."

"You kill strippers for leisure or political purposes?"

"No! I am very convincing in making sure that they won't say anything. And just like that, if you get too scared, which is fine, I will just convince you to make sure you won't say anything."

"That seriously works? Come on, you really think that works?"

"I can be very persuasive." She said darkly. "Robobitch was trying to freak you out so she could take the younger Kurosawa for herself. She's done shit like this before. She once convinced a new girl that a client was working in human trafficking and trying to lure her into becoming a prostitute. The guy was a loan shark for god's sakes, and she knew it too. Now are you coming back or not?"

_Consider your next course of action very carefully. _

_It's not just for me anymore. It's for everyone who has been tracking these monsters for years. _

"Yeah. I'm set. How does my makeup look?"

"It looks fine. Let's go."

* * *

That was terrible. That was absolutely terrible. Kyoko beat herself up that she let things get that bad. That she let everything…the church, the job, Yuma, everything get so bad.

She was a fuck up.

"One dry martini for you Kurosawa-sama." She said with an insincere fanged grin.

"Thank you Koko. Are you girls up for performing that show now? I think we would all like to see it."

It didn't look like he was lying. This was the first time she had ever seen James without some sort of cocky grin. He just looked worn out. The Miyamotos looked frustrated, though they showed it to different degrees.

She turned to Rin. _Ah fuck, we should have changed outfits while we were down there. _"Could I convince you to join me on stage?" She grinned, stalking over to the girl, swaying her hips for Kurosawa and licking her lips. She was playing up the big bad wolf game. But truth be told, as long as Rin was actually emotionally stable, she wouldn't mind letting loose a bit.

"Ok…" She mumbled.

It was much smoother than before the mini meltdown, but it wasn't nearly as electrifying as last time. She seemed more hesitant now. It had never occurred to Kyoko to follow up with her today about how she really felt about last shift. However, if the young girl's moans as she thrusted down on her fingers, the way her tongue was almost out of her mouth, the way she was getting so _wet _were any indication, she was just fine.

She ignored that way Geisha in particular seemed to stare at them.

She really ignored the way Kyubey's tail swished back and forth as it watched them. Fucking perverted ferret thing.

* * *

She was so relieved that the night was over. That had been hell. She looked over her shoulder to entire way home to make sure no one was following her. She went the roundabout way Ryo had taught her designed to lose people who were tailing her. She got changed at the right place to make sure she really messed with their heads. She did everything she needed. Now she needed to decide her next course of action.

She wanted to call her parents and spend the night there. Hell, she wanted to sleep in their bed with them like she was a little kid who just had a nightmare. But she couldn't be that weak. Not yet. Not now.

"Miki? Why are you calling so late? What's wrong?"

"You need to evacuate the Kurosawa undercover's family. They have known for a long time that he was a cop, but he wasn't supposed to find out about Tuesday's shipment. They know he has a family and are going to target them."

"Shit. I'm on it. Good work Miki. Are there any other pressing matters?"

"No, that's all I know. Please do something fast!"

"Got it. Have a good night. We'll talk on Monday."

They hung up. She exhaled in relief. She dialed the first number on speed dial. Her parents had caller ID. They would pick up and be there in a heartbeat. They always were. It only took two rings. She sometimes wondered if her mother could ever have a sound night's sleep again.

"Sayaka? What's wrong? Are you ok?"

She wanted to say yes. She wanted to say everything was fine. But somehow, when she heard her mother's concerned voice, she just broke down.

"No Mom." She sobbed. "No, I'm not ok, can I come over?"

"Of course, honey, of course! Do you want us to come pick you up? Your father…" She heard a silence and a snort. She suspected her mother just jabbed him awake "your father is awake and can be there to come get you in about ten minutes."

"Ok, I'll be ready and will see-" She heard a noise…a car coming to stop outside on the street. She looked out the window. Across the street, parked inconspicuously in the shadowed area not lit by street lamps was a black car she had never seen before. Her vision wasn't good enough to see inside the windows. Who was in there? Was it Kurosawa? The Miyamotos? Watanabe? Some goon?

Geisha and Sango's warnings echoed in her mind.

And her parents were about to come over.

"Nevermind. I think I'll be fine." She tried to keep the terrified tremor from her voice.

"What? You were just sobbing and begging us to come over! We're coming over."

"No! You can't come over!"

"Why not!?"

_Why not? I'm doing direct undercover work of some of Japan's worst crime lords, and they may be tracking me. They may try to find anyone close to me they can use against me, like they did to that other undercover._

"I…I've relied on you guys for so long. You have been there for me time and time again, especially over the last few years. I need to learn to stand on my own two feet…"

"That's bullshit." Sayaka couldn't remember a time she heard her mother say that. "That's bullshit in every way and you _know _it! We're your parents, so I don't care if I have to drive across the damn country when I'm 90, if you need me, you need me! We're coming over now and you can't stop us."

_Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no! _

"I lied Mom! I'm sorry! It's a work thing. It's a scary work thing I can't get into, but I'm scared that if you and Dad come…you'll be in danger too." She whispered hurriedly. There was almost a sense of relief in admitting that she was terrified about what she was getting into, but it didn't even come close to outweighing the fear she felt from thinking that Kurosawa was outside, watching her, trying to find information on her.

The phone was silent.

"Sayaka, what's going on? Why are you in danger?" She sounded calm. Surprisingly calm.

"There's…" She wasn't sure how to respond. Should she lie? She felt like she had been doing too much of that, and her parents could see right through her anyways. "There's someone outside. I don't know who, but I'm worried about who it might be."

"Can you describe the person outside?"

"I thought I was the cop."

"And I'm your mother, so I don't care what you do, you're still my baby. Who's outside?"

"It's a black car in the shadows. I can't see who's inside. But they haven't moved for a few minutes."

"Where are they parked?"

"Across the street from my apartment. Near the red apartment building."

"And you're sure they're not waiting for someone inside that building?"

"Uh, well…" And surely enough, a young women in a low cut black dress came out smiling and got in the car. The mysterious car drove off. "A girl in a black dress just got in the car and they drove off. I guess they were waiting for someone. Haha…false alarm." She finished weakly.

"False alarm." She heard her mother repeat. In the background, she heard her father apologize and say it was a false alarm.

"Did you guys call 911?!"

"You said there was someone outside your apartment, of course we did! Sayaka, I have no idea what this new work you're doing is, but it sounds terrifying and it's making you paranoid. I don't think you can handle this with where you are in treatment."

"I've been clean for almost two years Mom, I'm not in treatment anymore." Bullshit lie, and she knew it.

"You're never fully in the clear. You're putting yourself at risk and we are coming over to get you right now."

"That may have been a false alarm, but you don't know who's out there! I don't want you coming over. Not tonight. Please, just not tonight. Tomorrow. I'll see you first thing tomorrow, I promise. Just don't come over tonight. Please Mom, please." She was crying again. She was begging. She felt pathetic.

"Do you understand what you're asking us to do? You're asking us to leave you alone when you're clearly terrified. I don't even know what's going on, but I can't leave you alone like this."

"I'll call someone from work to stay with me. I can even have them call you from my phone to prove that they're here. They are way more qualified to provide protection than you. Please Mom, just don't come over tonight."

Silence again.

"Fine. I expect a phone call in 30 minutes from your phone and to speak to someone whose name I know. If I don't hear anything, we're coming over."

"Thanks Mom. I love you." She meant it.

"I love you too. More than anything." She heard some rustling in the background. "Your father says he loves you too, and together we love you more than anything. We just want to make sure you're safe."

"I know. I'll call them now. Talk to you in half an hour."

They hung up. She called Ayumi, a friend of hers from the force with only a bit of extra experience. She was also considered for the Tomi assignment. Ayumi was surprisingly good about it and came over. Twenty-seven minutes later, she phoned her parents to let her know she was staying over.

Ayumi brought wine, which would have pissed off her parents. "Sounds like you really need some", she had said. They talked about work, but not about many of the finer details of the Tomi assignment. They bitched about Ryo. They went to bed. One thing stood out to her more than anything though, which Ayumi only said after a few drinks.

"At first, I was pissed that I didn't get the assignment. Especially when you got that killer lead on the first night. But I just got a text from Eito saying he had to help an undercover pack up his family and leave town and now you're like this. I'm sorry Sayaka, but I'm glad you beat me. I hope I never get an undercover assignment."

"I hope you don't either." And she hoped she would never get another again after this was all over.

* * *

She was so relieved the night was over. There was way more drama than she would have liked, on top of all of the bullshit that was already happening with her.

She tried to be as quiet as possible coming in. She didn't want to wake Yuma up.

She was pleasantly surprised to see everything clean and sparkling. They generally lived in a bit of a pigsty, even though both of them liked clean places. Actually taking the time to clean was not something either of them liked to do though.

She was unpleasantly surprised to not find Yuma in bed. Or the bathroom. Or anywhere in the apartment. She found a note on the table.

"Hi Kyo!

"A friend from art club invited me out tonight. I would have texted, but I knew you were working and stressed and didn't want to bother you. I'll be back by midnight!

"Love, Yuma"

She never signed anything with "love", which concerned her. Secondly, it was almost three in the morning. Where the hell was she?

She picked up her phone and was about to text her.

_"Kyoko! This is bad!" _A familiar voice warned her telepathically. It was the damn fur ball again. However, she had a feeling he was going to be bring very important, and clearly very bad news. _What the fuck did you do Yuma?! _

"Where's Yuma?" She asked verbally.

_"She tried to fight a witch on her own. She got badly injured. There may not be much time! She's at the park nearby." _

That was all it took for Kyoko to transform and jump out the window. Thankfully, along the skyline it only took her three minutes to get there. _Three minutes too many…_

She could sense the witch's barrier immediately. It was warped, so there was clearly a fight inside. She jumped in.

The barrier reminder her a race car park. A crowd of colourful faceless familiars who seemed to do nothing but cheer littered the stands. But where was the witch?

"Help! Help us!"

Kyoko looked over to see a group of four young people, probably in their teens who went out for the night. She noticed one of them in particular; a young blonde girl with pigtails. She looked like she was only Yuma's age. They were being crowded in the stands, almost trampled by the familiars. Then she looked at the track.

Yuma was there. She was lying down against the walls. Kyoko bounded over to her.

"Yuma!" No response. "Yuma! Answer me!" She shook her. That was when she felt it. She pulled her hand back.

Red.

Blood.

She turned Yuma over, and was horrified. Her back was completely open. The skin was ripped off. Her spinal cord was exposed and clearly broken in numerous places. Her soul gem on the back of her neck wasn't cracked, but it was getting darker pretty quickly.

"Help us! Please, help us!"

She heard an engine revving behind her.

She found the witch.

A huge gaudy armoured pink race car with spiked tires sped towards them. She knew she could hit it, but she didn't know if she could stop it.

The car was going to run over Yuma if she couldn't.

Her split second decision led to her grabbing Yuma and dodging. Damn good thing too because it decimated the wall, sending cheering familiars flying.

Yuma wasn't responding.

The four people were screaming for help. The stands seemed to be getting more and more crowded…

_"It's too bad you never learned how to use your magic again. You could have sent a copy or two to go save those people." _

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. I suck."

She could carry Yuma over one shoulder. She could maybe carry one of the people over the other.

There was no way she could save all of them. If Yuma hadn't been injured, they could have each taken two.

Could she even save any of them?

"Please, help us!" The blonde one screamed. _She looks like Mami._ Her companions seemed to be unconscious now. She knew which one she was saving.

She jumped, trying not to get caught in the colourful mosh pit. She sliced away a few layers of familiars to uncover the girl's upper body. It was difficult, but with enough arm power she could pull her out.

"Thank you! Thank you so much! My sister, her boyfriend, and his friend are still in there!"

Kyoko jumped away, running as quickly as she could away from the center of the labyrinth.

"No! Go back! We need to get them still! Go back! GO BACK!"

"Sorry kiddo. I only have two arms." She cringed internally. She knew she should have been more sympathetic, but when you're trying to run from a _fucking race car_ with two pubescent girls on your shoulders, it's hard to find energy to be kind. For Mami, being kind was effortless. For Kyoko, not so much. Not even for Yuma.

"Yuma, you fucking idiot, why didn't you call me?!" She screamed to the unconscious corpse (_no, no! Not a corpse! Just a beat up body, but she's fine. She's not a corpse, she's not dead! She's not dead!_).

They reached the outside of the labyrinth, emerging a few blocks down. Further away from the apartment where they had the extra grief seeds that Kyoko didn't bring with her, of course.

Her back was knitting itself back together nicely, but her soul gem was getting very, very tainted. Yuma was using her power subconsciously. She couldn't stop it. She couldn't conserve her power. She had to get her back to the apartment immediately.

"Please! Can you go back and get my sister? At least just my sister, please!" The girl had big brown eyes. She really did look a lot like Mami. Poor Mami who just didn't want to be alone…

"I need to take my own sister" she nodded down to Yuma "to fix her up. If I don't, _she'll _die. I really am sorry." She meant it.

_"You can contract with me and become a magical girl just like them! Maybe you can save your sister and friends yourself." _Kyubey messaged the girl telepathically, but allowed Kyoko to hear the conversation.

"Really? I could do that?" She asked hopefully.

"He's lying! Don't do it! They were already dead!" She called over her shoulder. She didn't stop though. She left, hoping but doubting that the girl heeded her advice. To be honest, she wasn't sure if they were dead or not, but she figured it might help quell any temptation to be an idiot. If they weren't dead then, they must have suffocated by now. Had Yuma not been on the verge of becoming a witch in her arms, she would have stayed and tried a bit harder.

She jumped over the tall skyline to the penthouse apartment where the window was still open from where she jumped out. She really should have just used the damn balcony.

They had a stash of three grief seeds built up. Just one and a half or two should do the trick, but then they'd start to be a bit low.

Yuma's soul gem cleared up nicely. It was going to need to be purified again soon based on the amount of magic she was going to need to regrow and fix her spine. Kyoko tried to place the bones in as correct a position as possible. _If I fuck it up, she can just fix it later…right? _

Three grief seeds probably wouldn't be enough.

It pained her, but she was going to have to leave Yuma to kill the race car witch. Just one more grief seed should make her right as rain.

The barrier was gone when she got there. _Of course, a RACE CAR witch would be gone by now. Who the fuck becomes a race car witch? I mean seriously?! _

She could sense one nearby though. It wasn't the same magic residue, but it was definitely a witch. _A witch is still a witch. _

She found it quickly and jumped in. Kyoko was familiar with the patterns of many labyrinths. They were usually creepy, and fairly spacey, like a pin drop could create a loud echo. And there were usually at least a few chambers to go through.

This one seemed to take her straight to the center. And it wasn't spacey at all.

It was like she was back in that mosh pit, but she was underneath it. It was like quicksand that moved quickly and violent. Above, she could see red and green shapes moving back and forth. She was able to extend her spear to pierce a red shape which pulled her out.

Once she was out, she recognized the familiar.

It was her.

"I really am sorry." It said in a distorted, low voice. In the centre, she could see what looked like a yellow lollipop with wings sticking out of the head struggling in the pit much like she had before. There was no doubt about it. In the ten minutes she had been gone, the girl contracted and became a witch.

She was a quick witch to kill. Even quicker than her time as a magical girl.

The barrier dissipated and a grief seed fell. Kyoko picked it up and looked at it.

_"You got a grief seed. Aren't you happy? You should bring it back to Yuma now." _

"What happened here, exactly?" She asked tersely. She stared at the grief seed. She couldn't stand to look at the little white demon beside her. _Papa was right; I did sell my soul to the devil. _

_"She contracted to have the same powers you do. She went back into the labyrinth and found that her sister and friends had already died, just like you said. Then she became a witch." _

"Didn't you tell her she could save them?"

_"I said she could maybe save them. I had no way of knowing if they were alive or not. My duties do not include supervising witches or their victims; I only supervise living magical girls until they transform. So from my standpoint, it was true that there was a possibility that they were alive and she could save them. Isn't that what the word 'maybe' means?" _

She gripped the grief seed tightly.

"Technically, yes. But that's not how we would use it in that case. We would have explained that she probably could not have saved them at all and told her to move on with her life!"

_"But she didn't ask what the probabilities of saving them were. If she had, I would have told her it was about two percent. How can you be upset with me for a negative outcome that was based on her lack of rational reasoning? I don't understand you humans sometimes." _

"I doubt you ever will, devil."

She got back to the apartment shortly. Yuma's spinal cord was already fixed and reattached, with her back mostly healed. It did take another grief seed. She used the other one that had been in their stash.

She wished this would all be over soon. But it wouldn't. After all: she had sold her soul to the devil.

**AN:**

Hahahaha, I thought this chapter was going to be short! 51 pages later, with most of the things I had intended to have happen not in there to cut down the length, I have been proven wrong. Wow.

I'm really sorry about how long this took to get out. A bad combination of work, new ideas for the story and this chapter just getting away from me made this take much, much longer than I had intended. I'm going to work a bit harder at "cutting the fat", so to speak. This chapter got really long because I was setting up a lot of plotlines (bonus points if you can figure any of them out!) that were going to be coming up so there should be a lot more action going forward. I am very sorry to anyone who felt that this chapter was tedious.

I want to thank everyone who took the time to review, particularly those who took the time and gave constructive criticism! It has really helped me out and motivated me. I want to let people know a few things going forward.

Some have mentioned they missed the love-hate relationship. Don't worry, I love that too, and it is going to be coming very soon. Maybe not between "Rin" and Kyoko, but definitely between Sayaka and Kyoko, and it might start in the next chapter or two.

As you have noticed, there are quite a few OCs. I myself am not a big fan of them, but I try to make them as developed as possible if I need to have them. I also only have OCs that are important to the plot of Sayaka and Kyoko's development. Sayaka's parents are actually only semi-OC. The characters are based on what I'm pretty sure were her parents in the anime (there was a scene where she was a kid watching Kyousuke's performance; I decided that the two adults sitting on either side of her were her parents). Gen Urobochi said in an interview that her parents were "petite bourgeoisie", so I made my own personalities for them based on that. Think of the short story "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant and you have my inspiration for these two! I can promise you now, there are no more significant OCs going forward.

For the writing the same conversation between Sayaka and Kyoko from both points of view being boring, I completely agree; it was also boring to write. That won't be happening again!

As usual, I love feedback and would love to hear more from you guys!

Thanks for reading!

-Don'tKillKenny


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

She didn't want to wake up. Kyoko just wanted to stay in bed, curled around Yuma whose back was finally healed while listening to her steady heartbeat. Last night had been close; way too close.

In the end, she had to use every grief seed they had. Not only on Yuma, but herself too. She had begun to despair while watching Yuma like that…barely alive.

_The moment Yuma dies…I'm going to become a witch. _

So she made up her mind to never let Yuma die before her. That should be simple enough. So long as Yuma doesn't go off and fight on her own again.

While Kyoko may seem hard-headed, she was actually very self-aware. At the rate she was going, she was going to become a witch anyways. She was using way more magic recently to keep her up and going, despite everything that was happening. If she hadn't had magic, she probably would have just had a mental breakdown and been done with all of this shit.

"_Don't pretend you care about every person you pass on the street either."_

Miyamoto's words were bouncing around her head since the girl who looked like Mami went through the entire magical girl hope to despair to destruction cycle in fifteen minutes. That poor stupid girl inadvertently became the sacrifice Kyoko needed to sustain both Yuma and herself for another night. If she had taken a few extra minutes to explain the full truth of magical girls to her, could she have saved both of them?

There was a disgusting part of her mind that was glad she didn't because it made sure both she and Yuma lived another day.

"Ky…Kyoko?" Yuma sounded like she was in pain. But she was finally awake. Realistically, sixteen hours of sleep and recovery was remarkable considering what she had gone through, but it was long by Yuma standards and way too fucking long by Kyoko's.

"Good morning, dummy." She wanted to say something much worse. To give Yuma a piece of her mind and chew her out for worrying her so damn much. But even she could recognize that now wasn't the time to do this. That shit storm will happen tomorrow…assuming she could hold off that long.

"What happened to the witch?"

"It's still out there. I couldn't beat it and get you out of there."

"What about those people? There were people stuck inside."

What about those people? What was she going to tell her? That three of them were suffocated by the familiars while Kyoko saved another who became a magical girl to save her friends, found out she was too late, and became a witch who was then hunted by Kyoko? That seemed like a lot.

"I didn't see anyone else in there. I just saw you on the track with a ripped open back and broken spine." She started to choke on her words. _Fuck, not now, not now. _She had impressively not cried once last night, but saying it out loud did something to her.

"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I didn't think-"

"Of course you didn't! Otherwise you would have waited for me or called me or _something_. You know you can't find well on your own!" Kyoko snapped angrily. It was a bad habit of hers to resort to anger when she couldn't process her feelings properly.

Now Yuma was crying.

"I just…I just…."

Kyoko took a deep breath and sighed.

"Don't worry about it. Not now, ok? We've both been through a lot, so doing this now is just going to drain both of us. We'll talk about it when you're better. How was your time with your friends? What did you guys do?"

Yuma blinked at her.

"Huh?"

Kyoko was starting to see red again. _If you lied about that, so help me…_

"You went out with your friends from art club. I was wondering what you guys did." Her tone was warning Yuma to choose her next words very carefully.

"I'm…I…" _Don't tell me. I don't want to know. Lie to me now, please lie to me now. _

"I just wanted to be useful…" She whimpered quietly, eyes downcast. "I thought I could start getting grief seeds on my own for us so you could focus on those things you need to do for your first family that you won't tell me. If you don't tell me, how am I supposed to help?"

Kyoko buried her face in her hands and tugged on her hair. Somewhere deep down, she had known that Yuma had gone out witch hunting alone. And it was for as stupid a reason as to help her.

She had to explain what was going on.

"Yuma, please listen to me. The problems I'm having have nothing to do with you or witches. I need money; a lot of it. That's what I'm dealing with. There is nothing you can do."

"How much do you need? I can get a job!"

"No, you can't. That wouldn't do much Yuma…I need eight billion yen."

Kyoko had never seen Yuma's eyes get that wide before.

"What did you _do_?"

"Nothing! That's exactly the problem."

"Huh?"

"It's my Dad's church. The city is basically calling it out for being a shit hole. They say I can either fix it or sell it to them and they will fix it…or tear it down." Kyoko had been hearing a lot of rumours about trying to revitalize the Old Industrial District but building nice new condos and a huge shopping mall to attract residents of Kazamino and New Mitakihara. "I can't let that happen. My Dad worked too hard for his church."

"He didn't seem to care that much when he set it on fire. And before you think of hitting me, remember I'm hurt." The sassy side of Yuma is out again; Kyoko's least favourite side. She was so cute when she was younger. In some ways, all of the years of abuse led to a desperation to be a 'good girl', and she was adorable when she was good. Now that she's not abused, she gets sassy.

Kyoko hit her softly with a pillow. Well, softly by their standards.

"He went insane, and I drove him there. When he was sane, that church meant everything to him. I want to remember the sane him. It's what he would have wanted."

Yuma looked away to the ceiling. She wasn't going to win this; they both knew it.

"I'm hungry."

"Me too."

For now, agreeing on that could be enough.

* * *

She didn't want to wake up, but her family didn't give her a choice.

"Rise and shine Fuzz!" Her Dad said way too loudly and way too happily for…noon.

_Well then. _

"Thank you so much for coming over last night Ayumi. I have no idea what happened but she was terrified and I couldn't stand the thought of leaving her alone." She heard her mother say outside the door.

"Some things happened last night that I cannot tell you due to confidentiality, but believe me Miki-san, I would have been much more concerned if Sayaka was not terrified. We are going to be increasing our security for our undercovers and their families, so you can rest assured that everything is fine." She sounded so professional. Sayaka came out of her room and told her that.

"I am dealing with sensitive family matters, of course I am professional." The moment Sayaka's parents turned away, she gave Sayaka the finger. Sayaka grinned in return.

Ayumi was a fun one. She had dark pink hair with a style very similar to Sayaka's, but longer. Her eyes matched her hair exactly, making her a bit funny-looking. It made Sayaka happy that she was not the only one with strange hair on the force though.

"Well, we brought breakfast if you would like to join us." Fumiko smiled, holding the unopened box of donuts from Thursday. Sayaka was glad to see she hadn't thrown them out in a fit of determination to become a size 2 in three months.

"I'll take one, but I should be on my way. I'm on duty in two hours. Thank you very much for your hospitality. Sayaka, if you need any protecting" she nodded down to the bag where there were still two unopened wine bottles, "just give me call."

Her family in general had a nice chat right after Ayumi left. They asked her what the hell was wrong, of course, but she didn't go into details. A good night's sleep did her a lot of good.

Finding out that her parents had spoken to Ryo from his home phone this morning did not do her as much good.

"You called my _boss_?! How the hell did you even get his number? I don't even have his home phone number!"

"He called us. The emergency operators knew you and were very concerned. They asked if we would be alright with them passing our number onto him, which of course we were fine with."

"Oh god, what did you say?" She was freaking out. What kind of self-respecting cop had their _mother _call their _captain_?

"I said I was very worried about what this undercover mission was doing to you and that it clearly would not be good for you where you are in treatment."

"Mom, are you trying to keep me from ever getting a promotion? Because you're off to a fantastic start there."

"Your health comes first. If you're out there as a captain of the police force and using or living in your old room until you're fifty and unemployed but healthy, so help me I will force you back into your old room!"

Sayaka groaned and buried her face in her hands.

"What did he say?" She asked with fear, not looking up.

"He said he understood our concern, but was confident in your abilities. He also said you have been amazingly successful in your role and he looks forward to helping your professional development in the future. He also said that you have been clean for almost two years, so we are overreacting." Her mother's tone clearly implied that she thought he was an idiot. "I told him to come to some of our addictions awareness month events because he _clearly_ does not understand what you are going through." She concluded pompously.

"Mom!"

"Fuzz, an addiction is a disability." Her father began. "As such, they need to take reasonable precautions to ensure you are kept safe and able to work. It sounds like this assignment isn't doing that." She hated the 'addiction is a disability' speech.

"A disability is something you can't control. My addiction was because I fucked up. It was my choice and I am _not _going to make that stupid choice again!"

"You don't seriously believe that, do you? We have been through this over and over again! It's a-"

"A neurological disease, I know, I know!" She cut her father off. "Can we not talk about this anymore? We're just going to get mad at each other. Seriously this week has already been really, really hard for me. I just don't want to think about it." She stuffed a chocolate donut in her mouth so they couldn't make her talk anymore.

Her mother was silent. Her father's face was beet red, and she couldn't tell if he wanted to cry or scream at her.

"I don't know what you're doing, but I think we would both really appreciate it if you would consider backing out Sayaka." Kenji said softly. The fact that he used her actual name sent tremors down her spine.

"I understand. Thanks for your support guys. I mean it."

"Is that all you're going to say?" He asked.

"Yeah." The defiance in her tone would have been much more dramatic if she wasn't speaking with a donut in her mouth.

"Then we're leaving. I think we all need a bit of time to cool off and think about what's been said and what's happening. We've seen you self-destruct before Sayaka. It nearly killed us, and it damn near literally killed you. Please; don't make any of us go through that again."

They left the box of donuts behind and closed the door. Sayaka pulled out the vodka she hid under the bathroom sink.

Just as she was about to take a swig, she looked at her reflection. Her hair was a mess. Her eyes were splotchy from crying. And _oh dear god, what did Kyoko do to my neck?! _

It was 12:30 pm on a Saturday.

She poured the vodka down the sink, threw out all of her bottles, and called Hitomi to see if she wanted to hang out earlier.

* * *

Kyoko watched as the witch's barrier around her collapsed. It wasn't the race car witch, which she now had a personal score to settle with, but it was a nasty looking teddy bear…thing. She suspected this witch was born of a younger girl. Most of the cutesy ones were.

One grief seed wasn't a particularly good haul for the night, but it was better than nothing. She had stumbled upon two strayed familiars; one for this witch and one for the yellow lollipop witch from yesterday. The familiar for the lollipop witch was one of the little red jumping Kyokos. She killed it for the hell of it.

She called off work for personal reasons. She wouldn't have been able to work well after what happened to Yuma. Besides, evidently everyone there already knew she had a little sister she was raising.

_Why am I fucking everything up now? It seemed like everything was going to be ok for six years. _

Six years. She had been with Yuma for six years and they had never had any serious problems. They had the routine psychological disorders and fears of abandonment, which surprisingly were not nearly as problematic as they sounded. Maybe part of why she and Yuma worked so well together is that they were both just as terrified as being alone and willing to only focus on looking after the needs of the other.

But Kyoko didn't want Yuma to look after her needs. _Yuma should be able to be a kid_, she thought.

She didn't really take Yuma's thoughts into consideration though, did she?

Thunder boomed overhead and it started to drizzle. Then it started to pour. Kyoko walked along without an umbrella. Her hoodie wasn't warm enough. She ignored it though.

Her stomach growled. She ignored that too.

She ignored the condition of the church. She ignored Yuma. She ignored her surroundings. And now she was ignoring herself.

_Of course everything was going to come tumbling down eventually. _

It really made sense, all things considered. Kyoko was stunned that she lived this long. She never made a long-term plan. The only planning she had really done was putting a life insurance policy in place that made Yuma the benefactor of a hefty sum of cash. Why would she have paid careful attention to all of those details?

She even ignored the person right in front of her. And promptly bumped into them.

"Watch it!" She yelled unnecessarily. Really, it was at least as much her fault as this poor soul's. But she was pissed and this didn't help.

It was nice that she bumped into them though, because she was temporarily under an umbrella.

She actually took a moment to look at the person she just yelled at.

_Aw shit…_

"Ah, I remember you. Sorry officer. I'll be more careful next time." She couldn't remember the officer's name, but she remembered the weird blue-haired chick giving her a ticket for 1,000 yen.

"Oh, it's nothing. I'm not on duty right now, and even then, bumping into a cop who isn't watching where they're going and getting ticked off isn't illegal…I don't think." Her voice sounded odd. She didn't remember it being that squeaky. Maybe she had a lower, more authoritative voice when she was actually working to give her a sense of importance. The thought made her laugh internally. She did the same thing a lot, didn't she?

"Well, even then, I'm sorry for snapping. I should have watched where I was going."

"I'm sorry for giving you a ticket for 1,000 yen. It was supposed to be 10,000 but I was in a rush and messed it up."

They stared at each other.

"You're apologizing for giving me too small of a ticket?"

"No! Well, I'm glad I didn't give you a big one. I didn't want to give you one at all but I had to. I just think that a 1,000 yen ticket is a bit…well…"

"Ridiculous?"

"Yeah." She looked away and laughed nervously.

"This might sound weird, but I'm glad I got to apologize for that." She said meekly. _Huh? This girl's weird. _

"It's fine. I was actually able to pay off this ticket." She shrugged. She could pay off most of her tickets, but she didn't want to pay this one off because then she would have to pay all of them off. She had to admit, she felt like a bit of a deadbeat not paying off 1,000 damn yen. _I've got bigger things I need to worry about though. _

"Do you not have an umbrella? You're drenched!" _She just noticed? And now her voice sounds more normal again. Why was she squeaking before? _

"Nah, I don't need one. I'm going home now anyways."

"Is it far?"

"Well…" _Yeah, it's going to be an hour walking at this rate. _She didn't want to jump the skyline with lightning around. "It's a bit of a walk, but I'm fine."

"Here." The cop said, thrusting the handle of the umbrella into her hands. "I live close by and I'm going somewhere close by. I have another umbrella anyways. You can use this one!"

"No, thanks. I'm fine. I really don't need your umbrella." She tried to hand it back, but Blue refused to take it, leading it to falling on the sidewalk.

"Well, I don't need it either. So you can either have it or it's going to stay there. Maybe someone who does need it can pick it up. Have a good night Ky-…Kiko was it?"

"Good memory. It was Kyoko. And thanks for the umbrella, I guess…oh wait a minute! Do you have my IDs?" A flash of recognition came across the girl's face.

"Oh shit I forgot about those…I actually never filed the report. They're still in my desk. I haven't been to the station much."

"Could you get those back for me? Listen, a lot of things have been getting really fucked up in my life right now. Those IDs can't fix anything, but it can at least make it a bit better." She wasn't (really) trying to guilt trip Blue at all. It was just the honest to god truth. Blue looked profoundly uncomfortable.

"I don't know…"

"I understand you have rules and all. And you have to abide by them because it's your job. But…" _What am I doing? Hell, I can use a bit of magic for this! When am I ever going to see this chick again? _Kyoko grabbed Blue's arm, and stared into her eyes"it's going to hurt me more by not having these IDs than anyone would gain from them being reported, right? I've been having some real hard times recently, and this would make things just a bit better for me and my sister. Please, if there's anything you can do, it would do so much for us…for me."

Her eyes were pulsing. Blue's pupils were dilating. It was working, she could feel it. A portion of this girl wanted to help her out.

"Okay. The station is just two blocks over. I can run in and get them quickly for you."

"Thank you so much! You're a diamond in the rough, you know that?" She grinned. The girl blushed and looked away.

"Thanks, I guess."

They shared the umbrella, walking very closely together. The girl was wearing a scarf pretty loosely, so she could see her neck was riddled with bites and hickeys. _Maybe she just needed to get laid to get that stick out of her ass. _

"You should wait out here. I'll try to be in and out as quickly as possible."

"Thanks again Blue!" She grinned, waving as she slinked behind the corner. She pulled out a stick of pocky and munched on it smugly.

Now she just had to wait and at least something would be going alright.

* * *

Sayaka could feel her personal barriers crumbling around her. She honestly had no idea why she had such a change of heart so quickly, but it felt _so_ right. She'd been the bad guy for so damn long, it was nice to be doing something nice for someone else for a change. Besides, Kyoko really seemed like she deserved a break. _She's been really helpful to me at the club too, so really the force kind of owes her one..._

No one was at their desk in her department. Of course they weren't; it was 6:00 pm on a Saturday. Everyone else was probably at home with their families. Families that wanted to talk to them. Families that thought they had sense.

She shook her head to shake out the thought. She didn't need this now. She could vent about it at Hitomi's anyways.

The IDs were at the top of her "to do" pile in her "to do" drawer. It was a lucky thing it was against policy to leave open files on their desks or someone probably would have noticed the identical photos with not identical names.

"Miki? Is that you?" _Shit! _She jumped a bit in her chair. Ryo was behind her.

"Heya boss! How are you?" She sounded chipper. Way more chipper than she was to actually see him.

"Good, I'm good. What are you doing here?"

"Just getting caught up on the paperwork for a few files from before I took on the assignment. I may be focusing on something else more full-time now, but that doesn't mean I should shirk on my other duties, right?" _Maybe if I look and sound eager enough, it will combat everything my parents told him on the phone yesterday…_She was still in horrified disbelief that her parents had actually called her boss.

"Well, I'm certainly glad and impressed to see that you are still so engaged and enthusiastic! You've got the great makings of a cop Sayaka. Please never let anyone, especially your family tell you otherwise." He patted her on the shoulder in what seemed like a paternalistic way. _Oh god this is terrible._

"Uh, yeah. Thanks. I was a bit freaked out last night, so I overreacted and they overreacted and it went downhill from there. I'm really, really sorry that you had to get caught up in that." She rubbed the back of her head, looking away from him sheepishly. Ryo kept his hand on her shoulder and squeezed, which somehow made her look him in the eyes.

"I don't mind at all. I know how scary undercover work can be with big dogs like the guys you're dealing with. I was like that too. It's human. But I _believe _in you Miki. You _can _do this. You _can _get them. And I won't expect anything less than your best, just like you're giving now. Your files can wait until Monday. Go home." _Oh god…a pep talk. I just got a pep talk._

So she got the fuck out of there like he ordered her to do, sneaking the IDs into her pocket.

"Hey, did you get-" Sayaka cut her off by handing her the IDs. "Sweet, thanks!"

"No problem. I need to go. Have a nice walk home. Don't get too wet." She scurried off. She didn't want to be anywhere near Kyoko or Ryo right now. She just wanted to vent to someone in a safe place.

She ran away. She had to get to Hitomi's place quickly. She felt like she was going crazy.

She ignored the way Kyoko yelled after her. She just wanted to get out.

* * *

_What the hell was her problem?_

Kyoko shrugged it off, just glad that she got the IDs back. After everything that had happened, she had almost forgotten about them; but realistically she was going to need them for getting the church repaired. This was one less thing she had to worry about.

_Blue's weird, but she's alright. _

The walk back with the umbrella was a lot nicer than before. It even felt less gloomy.

She decided to pick up some sushi for her and Yuma from a convenience store. She didn't pay for it, naturally.

She was starting to feel more like her again. The street rat survivor that was good at making it against all odds. She smiled to herself. It was small but it was there.

She was feeling a little bit better.

* * *

_What the hell is my problem?_

She was so grateful when she reached Hitomi's apartment. She needed this.

"Sayaka! Welcome! I'm sorry Kyousuke isn't here yet. He had plans, but he should be here in an hour or two."

"Tell him not to come at all. I just want to talk to you. I'm sorry, but please. Just tonight." She loved Kyousuke's friendship, truly, but there was something about it that just did not make her feel right about divulging all of her secrets and troubles. There was a frustrating part of her that was always trying to impress him.

She had that with Hitomi a bit too, more out of envy than anything, but she was better at ignoring that.

It was rare moments like these that she missed Nakazawa. When they got high, they would talk about everything, including their worst sides. He told her about how he pushed a classmate down into the monsters to save himself, even though they may have both gotten away if they ran fast enough. Sayaka told him about how she had foolishly led her best friend to her untimely death, as a huge piece of wood from god knows where shot through her.

And they didn't hate each other for it.

Hitomi obliged.

"It's because it's the anniversary soon, isn't it?"

"What?" She had no idea what she was talking about. Her coming clean anniversary? That should be a good thing.

"Next week. It's going to be six years since that day…the day Madoka and everyone died." Sayaka gasped and thought about it. She was right. Next Wednesday, it was going to be exactly six years since they died. The Wednesday after that would be the anniversary of the Storm.

Maybe that was making all of this worse?

No, everything was bad anyways. This is just another thing to think about.

Sayaka groaned and put her head in her hands.

"I completely forgot. Now I've got that to think about too."

"I'm sorry Sayaka. I assumed that was what you wanted to talk about. I have been having other problems too, so I don't mind if we talk about other things instead…" _Ah hell. _Sayaka knew that tone. It meant that Hitomi had something she wanted to talk about, but wanted Sayaka to pressure her to talk about it so she didn't feel like she was complaining too much. She peeked an eye out at Hitomi from behind her fingers.

"It's Kyousuke!" _Didn't take long to crack this time._ _"_Things are changing in our relationship and I have no idea why. He just seems so unhappy. He doesn't come over as much as he used to. We haven't had a proper date in months! When he does come by, it's like it's just for sex. He only came over on Wednesday, had sex that lasted twenty minutes, and left right away. I don't know what's wrong!"

That sort of just sounded like regular busy Kyousuke to her.

"Hitomi, Kyousuke's kind of an idiot sometimes. I'm sure he didn't mean that personally. I would talk to him about it if I were you. Maybe he's gotten a bit too comfortable and doesn't feel the need to put in any effort anymore. Remind him! Tell him it's time for a date." She was forcing herself to be as nice a friend as possible. She really wanted to say 'My problems are way freaking worse than yours, you don't know anything!'

"I don't want to be a pushy girlfriend... I already say he has to come all the way over here all of the time…."

_Oh no you don't! _

"Well, that's too bad. I guess he won't know it's a problem and it's just going to get worse then." She shrugged, dismissing the subject coldly.

"Sayaka, please! You're so good at talking to him. Could you please just remind him for me? He always listens to you!"

"Hitomi, I honestly have a lot of other things going on and I really don't have the energy to be a mediator today."

"It will be quick, I promise! This has been on my mind for so long now. I'm so afraid I'll say something wrong and he'll break up with me. Please Sayaka! I don't want to be alone…not that way. Not next week, at least." _Oh for fuck's sakes. _

"Fine." She dialled his number. She wasn't happy about it but she did.

"Hi Sayaka! I thought Hitomi didn't want me to come over."

"She does and she doesn't. I don't know. She's feeling sad. That's bad. She wants a real date night. That will make her feel better. That's good. Do you understand?"

"Sayaka!" Hitomi exclaimed horrified. _You want something done, do it yourself woman. I've had a shit week. You were warned. _

"Uh, yes I do. Sayaka, is everything ok?"

"I don't know. Talk to Hitomi."

"Not with Hitomi, with you. I always appreciate it when you help us out, but you're usually a bit less…blunt about things, I suppose?"

"I have had the shittiest of shitty weeks and I came over here to bitch about it and I was told to play mediator instead. I'm fucking _pissed _Kyousuke!"

"Sayaka, I'm sorry! I should have listened to you first. I was just so stressed and I put that before your needs. I'm very, very sorry." Hitomi tried to calm her down.

"Stop pulling your conflicts and resolution class bullshit on me Hitomi! I don't want to hear it!" She screamed. She was unravelling.

"Sayaka, stay there, ok?" Kyousuke prompted.

"What, are you going to come over and make it better Kyousuke? Tell me, how are _you _going to make my problems better? No one can help me! I fucked myself! I fucking hate my fucking life!" She was starting to pull at her hair.

"I don't know how to help you when you get like this." Kyousuke sounded nervous. "Is there anything I can do to-"

"NO! THERE'S NOTHING ANYONE CAN DO!" She screamed and hung up; no point getting him involved in this to. She was I-give-up-on-the-world crying. The worst kind of crying. She had cried way too much over the past few days.

She flopped over on Hitomi's couch, smothered her face with a matching throw pillow, and cried some more. She had a bad feeling she was getting snot all over her face, but she didn't care. She sat like that, sobbing and whimpering for a few minutes.

Her phone rang again a few moments later. It was an unknown number.

She had a suspicion she knew who it was…and she wasn't going to go down that road today. She ignored the call. Though it was very thoughtful of Kyousuke to get Nakazawa to call.

She felt something large and cold get dumped in her lap and a light box plop on her chest. She looked down to see a tub of ice cream and a box of tissues.

"I don't know what else to get you." Hitomi said awkwardly, holding two spoons.

"Don't worry, you chose perfectly." Sayaka sniffled and smiled softly in apology.

* * *

Things got better after that. The next two weeks passed like a breeze compared to the week from hell.

Yuma healed perfectly and was back to fighting witches with her. From what Kyoko could tell, the dummy learned her lesson and wouldn't go running off on her own again. She thought she should ground her anyways as punishment.

"I'm taking away your tablet for a month." Kyoko decided.

"No! I need that!" Kyoko rolled her eyes at her dramatic response. _Teenage girls…_

"For what? To find good cat videos online?"

Yuma's fists were clenched and was clenching her teeth.

"You're just being a cunt, Kyoko." She snarled. Kyoko paused.

"Excuse me?" She said calmly with an eyebrow raised. This was a chance for her to take that back. Kyoko was not bothered by a lot of words: bitch, cow, motherfucker, cocksucker, slut, whore, and more. But that word…that word was reserved for the worst of the worst like Miyamoto Suki.

"You're being a cunt, Kyoko. I had my back ripped off and spine broken. Isn't that enough?" Kyoko had had enough sass. This girl needed to be taught a lesson.

"It's decided. No tablet for _three_ months." She hissed. Yuma gasped. That's right; Kyoko knew how to hit where it hurt; Yuma's still just a teenager after all. "I'm putting it in a place you can't find it. It'll be safe, don't worry." She reassured.

"What if I need it for art club?"

"You can use one from the school. That art club supervisor of yours is a sap. I'm sure you could swing something to get her to help out."

Yuma stormed into their shared room and slammed the door. Kyoko rolled her eyes .

"With that attitude, you should be more worried about whether or not you're going to go to New York!" Kyoko yelled with no malice in her voice.

"I'm not going anyways!" Yuma yelled back with lots of malice in her voice. Kyoko shook her head and walked out of the apartment. This kid needed some time to calm down.

See? She had this whole semi-parenting thing down.

Kyoko did indeed know the perfect place to hide it. The apartment would be a stupid place to leave it; Yuma would be able to find it and use it while Kyoko was at work. And Kyoko would come home and Yuma would pretend to have been a "good girl" and left it in its place. Kyoko wasn't that naïve.

Leaving it at work would be stupid because let's be real: someone would steal it.

That left one good place she could put it that she had at least moderate control over: the church.

They weren't evicting her yet.

Kyoko walked around through the rooms of her childhood home. This was the first time she had ever gone in since the fire for a reason other than to reminisce. It was kind of cool trying to find good hiding places instead like when she and Momo would play.

_Junkies are going to get it here. _

Like they had gotten everything else. Ok, so maybe the church wasn't a good idea. Was there any place the junkies hadn't found? _Maybe I should just try to find a clever place in the apartment…that storage closet is pretty messy so maybe she wouldn't be able to find it in there if she tried. _

Then she had it.

Not one junkie had found the church storage room yet!

She used a bit of detection magic to see and find that indeed, no one was around her. She slinked down the hidden stair case and flicked on the light, which was miraculous that it still worked. Seemed like nothing else in this pit did.

The incredibly crowded storage room was filled with good hiding places. Realistically, Yuma wouldn't think to come look for it here. Heck, she probably didn't even know this room existed either.

One shelf in particular came very close to reaching the ceiling…it was only a few centimeters below it. Had the wooden platform not been underneath it, it would have been a more reasonable distance away. Had the wooden platform not been underneath it, the goods on the bottom shelf would probably be disgusting and moldy too.

The small distance between the ceiling and top of the shelf was the perfect little space to fit the tablet in. She placed it there, jumped a bit, and pushed it further. Further than she intended to.

_Shit. I'm totally gonna have to climb this thing to get it out. _

Well, she would cross that bridge when she came to it. Besides: planning ahead wasn't really her thing.

* * *

Things got a lot better after that. She really needed a good cry and (unfortunately vague due to professional confidentiality) bitch session with Hitomi. It didn't make any of her problems go away, but it did help her cope with them a bit better.

She reconciled with her parents quickly enough. She told them that she talked to Ryo and they would pull her off the assignment at a moment's notice.

She was finally honest with them and told them what was going on in as much detail as she could.

"Guys, the thing is I got a huge lead on some really, really bad people that the force has never been able to get a lead on. These people are part of the reason why thirty-five percent of the city's addicts go missing…a bit part of it. I can stop this guys! I can get justice for all of those people who were stolen! I can protect all of those who might be stolen in the future if they aren't put away! This is _really _important! We've never been this close to them before and we may never get this close again. That's why I can't just back out."

Her parents were skeptical but decided to back down, thank god. Reconciling also made it way easier to get them caught up on their rent and some of her Mom's laundromat payments.

She also apologized to both Hitomi and Kyousuke for her lovely little breakdown. Kyousuke came up with the idea of going for a walk in the park the next Saturday.

A walk in the park meant that he would hobble on his crutches for as long as possible, then he would sit down in the wheelchair that Sayaka would push beside him.

He could usually walk for about ten minutes.

"So" he panted. They'd been walking for about five minutes now, so he probably didn't have much longer. "Hitomi told me a bit about your work." He took a few seconds to stop and breathe. He winced and moved forward. "Are you sure you're going to be ok?"

"Yeah, I think so. I can drop the assignment at the drop of a hat, and they won't punish me for it. Besides, this is a chance to really do something impactful. It's pretty cool!" Sayaka smiled.

They stopped again, for about two minutes this time for him to catch his breath.

"I'm really glad to hear that Sayaka. You've come a really long way, haven't you?" He tried to smile. He was exerting himself too much. They were at nine minutes now, including the two minute break.

"I really think I have, so thanks Kyousuke. That means a lot to me."

He nodded, giving a signal that he couldn't talk anymore. They were just going to keep moving for a bit until he crashed. Sayaka was walking at about a quarter of the speed she usually walked, but made no complaints.

He was shaking hard at fourteen minutes, including the two minute break. He collapsed into the wheelchair then.

"That was a whole extra two minutes! Way to go Kyousuke!" Sayaka beamed at him. He smiled, and went back to panting. She pushed him forward after that, trying not to start too quickly so as not to embarrass him.

"Can we…" Pant "go" pant "there?" He asked, pointing to the fountain. This time, there was a picnic blanket with paintings and drawings strewed across it. A young green-haired girl was there sketching an elderly couple that was smiling for her.

She turned around and smiled, saying she would be with them shortly after she finished this sketch.

Kyousuke was admiring the artwork. Sayaka was gaping because of two things.

Firstly, this girl was definitely Kyoko's little sister. She would recognize the young greenette from anywhere. Sayaka couldn't shake the feeling she knew her from somewhere else too though.

Secondly, the art work…it was so much like that day at the school; the day slightly over six years ago now. The checkered patterns, the strange monsters, it all looked exactly like it.

"This is fascinating, don't you think Sayaka?" He said with heavy breaths. "It really captures the dark sides of humanity. Uh… is that what you were going for?" He asked the girl…Yuka, was it?

"Yes! I'm impressed you got it so quickly. Are you an art connoisseur?" She asked politely. "All done! I am very sorry I couldn't do something in colour to email you…my tablet is currently out of commission."

"Oh, it's no bother dear. This sketch is beautiful anyways and we love it as it is." The elderly woman smiled.

"If you would like to come here again next week, I could get it coloured in for only an extra 6,000 yen? Or I could even make it into a painting for you for an extra 25,000."

"A painting would be lovely! Here you go miss." The elderly man handed her 25,000 yen on the spot. "We look forward to seeing it."

They exchanged numbers and were off. She put the sketch in a binder.

"I'm sorry for the wait. Are you a connoisseur, sir?"

"Well, I might call myself a bit of one." He smiled bashfully. _This girl's good…almost as good as her sister. _"My father is a museum director, so I grew up surrounded by the arts."

"Oh wow! Do you do any art yourself?"

"I used to. I played the violin."

"Why did you stop?"

"I was in an accident that crippled my hand. I haven't been able to play since." He stared at his hands, seemingly without expression. Sayaka knew better. "That's why I find that painting quite interesting."

Kyousuke was pointing to a picture of what looked like a painting of a cardboard woman with big hands in front of a bunch of destroyed cars. It had taken Sayaka years to understand and appreciate classical music. It would take her years more to understand and appreciate art.

"I'm really sorry to hear about your hands…" She said sympathetically and with a hint of something else in her voice; almost like interest and curiosity? _Nah, must be my imagination. _

"Thank you. How much for that painting? And maybe the checkered one with the dancing bear? I think Hitomi might like that."

"Don't get that for Hitomi." Sayaka interjected. Kyoko's sister looked at her confused, seeming to study her. _Shit, that was so, so rude to say to about a thirteen year old's work. _

"It's very nice but that one might bring up…bad memories from the school from six years ago. Trust me on that. Maybe something a bit less abstract?" Sayaka suggested.

"The Mitakihara Middle School attack? You were there?" She asked surprised.

"You know about that?" Sayaka was stunned. This girl must have only been six or seven when that happened. The girl quickly looked away and shrugged.

"It was all over the news. I remember thinking it was weird that so many people just disappeared. I never understood. Was just curious is all."

"I was there and I still don't get it…" She was very aware of how strange she was starting to sound. She was a bit bewildered that the girl wasn't asking more questions. Most people tried to grill her for hours for details, especially if they had a morbid curiosity like this girl claimed to have. "That one looks great, Kyousuke! The one of a church with all of the sakura trees."

"That is nice. I bet Hitomi would like that too. How much for both paintings? The one with the hands and the church?"

"How about 40,000 for both?"

"Sounds perfect." _Rich kid. _"I just need to go to the ATM."

"There's one a five minute walk away at the convenience store that way." She pointed to the left. "I've been giving people directions there all day."

They got the paintings. Sayaka also commissioned a chibi version of her in an officer's uniform, at Kyousuke's insistence. It wasn't pricey and was admittedly pretty cute. She decided she was going to put it on her desk on Monday.

Monday…where she was going to have to report that nothing significant happened the week before.

The crooks were surprised that no cops showed up on the Tuesday shipment. Kurosawa was furious that they wasted that opportunity. He and Watanabe screamed at each other. Then they weren't in for the rest of the week.

They knew that the undercover was an undercover though. He and his family disappeared, but according to them, they had no idea where they went, nor did Kurosawa particularly care. He was going to hire somebody to screen his operations for rats, he said. That was about it.

The second week was almost fun; she had a great time with Kyoko, who she wanted to help out in any way she could; she needed to keep a close relationship to get an in after all. There was something about helping her get those few extra yen in tips that just felt good. They were even starting to joke around, almost as friends.

She wondered if this next week was going to be more like the first or second week.

She really hoped there was going to be a pattern and everything would just calm down. Permanently.

She doubted it though.

* * *

Kyoko had been planning this all week. It pained her, but she brought Yuma in on the job.

"They want you to hide ten bodies in one night? Are they crazy?! Don't they know how much work you have to put in to just hiding one?"

"Of course they don't. What am I going to tell them? 'Hey guys! I'm a magical girl that will someday turn into this monster called a witch. But in the meantime, I can feed the bodies of your enemies to other witches!'"

"Good point. If I help you with this, can I get my tablet back sooner?"

"I think I read somewhere that the key to good parenting was consistency, so I will be consistent and say _no_. I'll get you icecream after though."

"Fine. But what's the plan?"

"Tomorrow night the client is going to give us a car to get to the ten locations. We need to get to these locations at these times." She pointed to the army time locations on the page. "After, we leave the car at the docks and go home."

"These places are pretty far apart Kyoko. Even just picking up the bodies and driving to the next place, that will be tight. How are we supposed to get a witch to move that quickly with us?"

"Easy. We find the right witch. I bet the race car witch likes to race. We find her after work tonight, use a tracking spell, use her tomorrow, and kill that bitch. Shall we?" Kyoko grinned.

* * *

Sayaka had been planning this all week. She was going to put on an amazing performance tonight that was going to wow both Fusao and Kyoko. She even put in extra hours on the pole to practice.

After her success her first shift, she got a Friday night stage time: the most coveted time aside from Saturday night.

Ever since the day in the rain, she tried harder and harder to impress the redhead and get them more tips. It was easier to ignore everyone else in the room when they did their shows. A lot of the time, they didn't even really have any sort of sex. They just made out or touched each other a bit. She still didn't like having other people there, but she was being helpful and developing a 'professional' relationship. And she was getting extra money to help her parents, so it was all worth it. Everybody wins.

It made the whole assignment a lot easier. The new challenge was being able to focus on both Kyoko and the clients, who were not even there a lot of the time. She figured that they did not have any urgent business to attend to this week. She didn't mind as she should have.

One time, embarrassingly and oddly enough, she had dreams of Kyoko finding her in a train station in her old Mitakihara Middle School uniform and hair and kissing her. It wasn't even a sexual kiss, but more desperate. Another time, she had a dream they were literally trying to kill each other in an alley with swords.

Her mind wandered to Kyoko more often than not, both when she was awake and asleep.

Sayaka wasn't sure what those dreams were trying to tell her. She figured she shouldn't read too far into it though. The dream-reading shit was more Hitomi's thing than hers.

* * *

Everything was ready. They could do this. How difficult could it be?

Work went by smoothly yesterday. Rin had seemed much more relaxed, which had made shows easier, and much more enjoyable. She didn't even have to think about things.

She could focus on the big job tonight.

"How are you feeling, kiddo?" Yuma rarely actually played an active role in her side jobs. This time, she would: she was going to be witch bait for the same witch that tore her back to shreds…disturbingly close to her soul gem.

"Great! I'm ready!" She grinned ear to ear. Yuma had been babbling about this all week (more about wanting to get payback). Kyoko had never seen her so excited before. She was surprised by how little Yuma was bitching about the matching outfits; black hoodies with the hoods up and blue jeans. They looked like a couple of punks. She suspected Yuma might have found it cooler that they were matching than she was letting off.

She had picked up the car already. It was a sexy small black car: a Mercedes Benz. She had no idea why Kurosawa would have given her such a nice car to drive for such a dirty job. Were they _trying _to get noticed?

She ignored the thought, enjoying the (_heated!_) leather seats. The car had so many gauges and buttons, she felt like she was in that time machine from Back to the Future…but sexier.

She really started to think that telling Tomi and Kurosawa that she didn't technically know how to drive would have been a good thing to do.

She played those driving games at the arcade though; how different could they be? Right pedal is gas, and left is brake. Use the wheel to steer. Don't hit shit. Easy enough.

The car had a sunroof, which was useful. After fiddling with some buttons they got it to open. Yuma would stand in the car and send back shock waves whenever she had to if the witch started to catch up.

Kyoko really hoped this would work.

"Ready when you are." She said from the backseat. Kyoko found something adorable about the fact that Yuma actually put on a seatbelt.

"Alright, let's do this!"

They had a GPS that Kyoko had plugged in with the addresses ready to go. Kurosawa really was having her go all over Kazamino, starting on the upper east side of town.

So naturally, the race car witch was cruising around New Mitakihara...which was to the west.

Kyoko muttered some curses to herself and they were off.

* * *

Everything was ready. Sayaka had made the dip and bought all of the chips to bring over to Hitomi's for the traditional weekly hangout; otherwise known as "third-wheeling Hitomi and Kyousuke's date night".

Well, that's what it became in the last year or so. Before, Hitomi and Kyousuke were together _all_ the time, it seemed. It was sickening sometimes. At the beginning it was because of young love, and afterwards it was because Sayaka and Nakazawa were off doing other things and they didn't have any other close friends. _Our bad. _

Now, according to Hitomi, they only saw each other about twice a week; one time for an evening with Sayaka there and another for an hour for sex.

Hitomi fretted to Sayaka constantly about their relationship (at least it _felt _like she did). Kyousuke didn't seem to notice anything was going on.

And when they were all together, Hitomi would usually make one or two passive aggressive comments that went right over his head. But not Sayaka's.

So she brought food as a way to not have to talk when need be.

Now that's certainly not to say that she didn't like their hangouts; it was usually the highlight of her week. But she could live without the relationship drama thrown in there.

The sky train ride to Hitomi's was also a highlight. She plugged in her music player, listening to classics like Chopin and Mozart, reminding her of the concerts she and her parents went to when they could pretend to have money. She closed her eyes, a ghost of a smile forming on her lips as the violins and pianos serenaded her into a peaceful haze of nostalgia.

The train car jerked a bit, as it always did at this bend. It was also her signal that the stop for Hitomi's home station was next.

Her eyes snapped open, looking into her reflection in the window across from her, along with a set of red eyes being reflected right beside her.

She whipped her head to her right; of course nothing was there. She blinked a few times. She shook her head.

_Guess my imagination's getting the better of me. _

* * *

This was going to be worse than Kyoko thought. They found the witch cruising around the Mitakihara marina. It was unsettling; the witch was just puttering along like it was going for a Sunday drive. Kyoko worried that they wouldn't be able to make it go fast enough to get them back to Kazamino in time.

She pulled up, right to the edge of the barrier; the front half of the Benz perched in the entry way to the shallow labyrinth was the back was on regular cement.

From this view, Kyoko could see that the witch was not the car itself; the witch was actually a faceless driver inside the car; it looked exactly like its eerily still and quiet crowd of familiars.

Kyoko experimented and revved the engine.

All hell broke loose.

The familiars roared as the witch raced right at them. Kyoko reversed to the left as quickly as she could, missing a collision by an inch.

"Kyoko, be careful! This is a really nice car!" Yuma scolded behind her.

"It's not my fault they were dumbasses when they picked out which car we should drive!" Kyoko hollered while setting the car in the right direction, trying to keep up with the witch.

She had never seen a labyrinth like this before. The stands with the familiars seemed to levitate in a hot air balloon after they went so they could follow better. They were not getting a single civilian caught up in the stands. They were barely watching the race; they were just cheering. They were holding up signs with crude drawings of Kyoko and the Mercedes.

The familiars were cheering for her and the witch wasn't even trying to kill anybody.

If she were willing to let her mind wander, she would have imagined what this girl would have been like when she had still been alive.

If.

Kyoko faintly registered at the back of her mind that she should count her blessings that they were not going to kill half of the pedestrians in Mitakihara and Kazamino tonight. The streets were also thankfully mostly deserted along this route. As it was, she had to work on guiding the witch to the right destinations.

"Turn right in 100 meters." The courteous voice of the GPS reminded. Kyoko was going 130 kilometers per hour in a 60 zone.

"Son of a bitch!" She yelled, stomping on the brakes and skidding to make the turn. Yuma shrieked in the backseat, barely restrained by her seatbelt.

"Approaching destination on your left in 250 meters." They were in a shadier part of Kazamino, near Tomi's. The guys planning this must have thought they were doing her a favour starting near her work. _Asshole pricks. _

This posed another challenge.

How the hell were they going to get the witch to stop?

Kyoko screeched to a halt, narrowly avoiding being rear-ended by the witch (which had been considerate enough to swerve to avoid hitting them).

"Yuma, watch the car and keep the witch at bay!" Kyoko shouted back. She didn't have to though. The witch was trying to attack the car, and Yuma was already firing shock waves at it, knocking it back.

The labyrinth was starting to descend from the sky, transforming the world around them into the track. This was almost too perfect; the pandemonium would help her sneak in, get the bodies, and sneak out.

Something had to go wrong.

Running into the building, nothing seemed overtly amiss until she saw a door that had a number of holes in it.

Bullet holes.

She braced herself, knowing it was going to be worse than a scene out of a slasher movie in there. It's not like she'd never seen a dead body before. Hell, she'd seen and hidden plenty. Stab wounds, beaten, drowning, burned, electrocution, even an acid victim; but the ones that had been shot, especially at close range were one of her least favourites.

While she didn't always show it, she really was a spiritual person; growing up with a preacher for a father will do that to you. She did believe in souls, but she thought it was the head, more specifically the brain that housed them, not the cardiovascular pump called the heart.

So seeing brains splattered along walls and furniture was always disconcerting to her. Literally splattered; no one seemed to realize how accurate a word 'splattered' is to describe it until they had actually witnessed a murder or suicide scene for themselves.

She opened the door, which didn't make a sound.

_Holy shit. _

Kyoko had been under the impression that there would be one body in here; they were killing one at each location.

This looked like it had been a freaking family reunion. There were a dozen bodies in here.

She heard a gargled whimper coming from the far wall.

There was a young woman's body there. Was the woman still alive? Looking at the back of her head, she would have assumed not.

Kyoko turned over the body, seeing a little auburn-haired boy no older than eighteen months curled against her mother's breast. He wouldn't look at Kyoko; he just clung to his mother's shirt, eyes squeezed tight, body shaking and continued to make that sound.

Kyoko noticed all of the blood on the front of the mother's periwinkle shirt, but it had looked like she had been shot from the back.

Kyoko's eyes widened in realization. _Oh please God no. _

While it pained her to do this, she wrenched the boy's body away from his mother. He tried to cry harder, but he just couldn't.

The little boy had two bullet wounds; one in his stomach and one to the right of his heart; probably his lung.

It was a cruel miracle that the boy was still alive at all.

"Ma….ma…." He spluttered out, trying to weakly reach for her body. Kyoko held him tight.

"Not right now. Not right now." She was ready to pull out her spear; give him a quick, merciful death.

_Ah fuck it. _

She got up and ran for the door with the boy.

"Yuma!" She yelled as she got outside, where the labyrinth had completely descended. _This kid's going to need some serious therapy if he remembers any of this shit. _

"I'm a little busy!" She yelled back in a surprisingly pleasant manner. She was throwing shockwaves that was making the witch's car flip backwards, but not actually damaging it at all.

"Let's trade! Heal the kid and I'll fight the witch!"

"What kid?!" She yelled back, looking at the terrified, pathetic bundle in her arms. "What the fuck!?"

Kyoko faintly realized that she probably shouldn't swear as much in front of Yuma as she does.

"I know. Just help him!" She thrust the boy into Yuma's arms, who immediately set to pulling out the bullets and healing him.

Kyoko jumped at the witch, thrusting her spear through the windshield. She didn't want to kill the witch, but she wanted to freak it out; she deliberately missed its head by a few centimeters.

"Kyoko, what do you want me to do with him?" Yuma asked from where she was sitting on the Benz's cracked (_!_) windshield. The little boy was evidently breathing better and significantly less pale than before. He was observing Kyoko and the witch with wide, curious eyes. His eyes were still puffy from crying.

Kyoko was about to instruct Yuma to put him back in the house…until she remembered all of the bodies in there. She wanted to avoid exposing Yuma to that life as much as possible. _Having one of us royally fucked up is bad enough…_

"Trade! Give me the kid, you keep the witch back! Don't break the car!" She yelled, suddenly grabbing the kid and darting for it. Yuma comically stumbled off of the car to fight. Kyoko might have laughed if their lives weren't on the line.

All of the sudden movements were scaring the boy. He started to cry again.

"Oh shut up you little brat! I just saved your sorry ass!" She snapped. He hiccupped, looking up at her. She sighed. This kid probably didn't understand what was going on, but he was definitely having a worse night than her. She dug around her pockets and found a stray chocolate bar, opening it and giving it to the child. He seemed happy.

"Oko!" He chirped. She realized he was trying to say her name. She couldn't help but smiled fondly.

"I've already sucked one orphan brat into my mess; I can't suck you in too." She jested softly, ruffling his hair. She snuggled against her chest while munching away on the kit kat bar.

She found a room with a crib in it; she felt it was safe to assume this was his. The room was quite barren though; the walls were dull, there were no toys, and the crib didn't even look safe. She noticed a suspicious bag of white powder in the corner.

"Maybe it's not the worst thing in the world that you're going to have to get a new family, huh?" She asked while putting him down. He looked up and her and started to cry.

"Oko, no go! No go Oko!" He pleaded. Her heart melted a little, but she really had to go. She did the first thing she could think of.

"As I went down to the river to pray, studying about that good old way, and who shall wear the starry crown. Good Lord, show me the way." She started to sing the familiar melody her mother used to sing to her before bed. She used her enchantment magic to put him to sleep faster, ensuring he would have good dreams.

"O sisters let's go down, let's go down, come on down, o sisters let's go down, down in the river to pray" She finished, more for herself than for him who had fallen into a deep slumber after the first verse.

"Have a better life than this kiddo." She said softly, gently stroking some of his hair out of his face. Her magic really knocked him out, so she took off his blood-soaked shirt quickly. She was already behind schedule as it was. She created a temporary barrier around him; it should only last an hour or two, but it would make sure that the guys who were cleaning up the bodies downstairs wouldn't find him.

She ran downstairs, used a diamond lattice to tie all the bodies together and threw the bodies to the familiars. They were all swallowed by the crowd quickly.

"Get in loser, we need to go!" She shouted to the orphan brat she did drag into her mess. She had more messes to drag her into, after all.

* * *

This was going to be worse than Sayaka thought. Much, much worse.

Not only was Hitomi already pouting in a corner, but there was an additional guest on the couch she was not expecting…

"Heyyyyy Sa-ya-ka!" Nakazawa said with a big, dopey smile. But not dopey in a cute way; more like "doped up on some unknown substance" sort of dopey.

"What the hell guys?" Sayaka asked incredulously, looking mostly at Kyousuke.

"I thought I had mentioned that this was a bad idea. I suppose I didn't speak loudly enough." Hitomi said in a way that sounded casual and pleasant, but clearly implied that yes, she _had _spoken loudly enough and was just ignored by her boyfriend.

"Oh come on, this is great! It gets us all back together again, just like in high school." Kyousuke smiled pleasantly.

"Before or after the whole, you know, almost dying from overdose bit?" Sayaka was trying to sound chill…but it was not working at all. She could recognize that.

"Good question." Nakazawa nodded sagely from the couch. He was clearly looking at Sayaka's chest. _Old habits die hard, I guess. _

"But that's in the past now, right? You haven't used in two years!"

"That's not really how this works Kyousuke…" She hated saying that. She wished he was right; she feels like he _should_ be right. But, as she has been reminded time and time again, her dumb decisions have altered her fucking brain chemistry and she messed herself up; badly.

It was a choice before, and now it will never be one ever again.

"Can I talk to you for a minute, Sayaka?" Kyousuke asked. "Alone?" He made a motion with his crutch to Hitomi's bedroom and started hobbling there. She followed dutifully. She ignored the way Nakazawa watched her follow him. He wasn't checking her out or anything; it was more like he was watching the way she followed him with disdain. Which he probably did.

Nakazawa, though he would only admit it when he was really, really high, had been envious of Kyousuke for a long time, though they had been friends since Elementary School. Kyousuke always did better in class and of course was a freaking music prodigy. Kyousuke was also more handsome and came from a wealthier, more respected family.

The funny thing is that Nakazawa was never far behind; he got A's while Kyousuke got A+. Nakazawa's family lived in a four bedroom house while Kyousuke's had five. Nakazawa was a cello player in the city's youth orchestra while Kyousuke was the solo violinist.

Then Nakazawa was there for the Middle School attack while Kyousuke was injured in the hospital.

Nakazawa had always been very impressive; just slightly less so than his closest friend. That was true until Nakazawa fell into the wrong crowd, along with Sayaka.

It had all started with Nakazawa's older cousin offering him a gram of marijuana to calm down after he had another trauma-induced meltdown. Nakazawa took it and he liked it. Then he and Sayaka did it together. Then he and Sayaka did other activities together that some would argue should be held off until college, marriage, or death.

It was perfectly awful timing that Nakazawa's cousin's dealer offered the first pill of ecstasy on the two-year anniversary of the attack. Nakazawa bought two; one for each of them.

It was the best sex they had ever had. They could almost forget about what had happened exactly two years before. So they kept using it.

Then they tried acid. Then they tried heroin ("How bad can it be to just do it _once_? Everyone talks about it all the time; we can handle ecstasy just fine, so how much worse could this be?") and cocaine, and later on meth.

And then neither of them could stop.

Kyousuke closed pushed the door closed with his crutch.

"You know how I feel about this Kyousuke. How could you invite him without telling me?" Sayaka asked, genuinely hurt. This was guaranteed to be a bad night, especially for her and Nakazawa. She had no doubt that he only came because Kyousuke said she was coming. Nakazawa had begun to resent Kyousuke, eloquently known as "golden boy" (on good days) in recent years.

"His family has been worried about him for years. _I've _been worried about him for years. He goes weeks at a time without talking to anyone. We're always worried he's going to wind up dead or missing. I had been terrified of that for you too for years, but you broke out of it!" She knew where this was going and she didn't like it.

"Kyousuke, it's not that simple – "

"He likes you, and listens to you. I think he even _loves _you. He won't change for us, but maybe he'd change for you. You also went through what he needs to go through; you're a good influence! His family always tries to get me to help him, which I try to do but he doesn't listen to me because I'm not like him anymore. You were though, so –"

"Kyousuke, I had to cut him off because he's a bad tie. The most likely thing to happen is that I'm going to relapse and we'll all be at square one."

"You're stronger than that though." He looked at her with an expression that had something like pride in it; it made her heart flutter a bit. But she had to look out for herself.

"No. No I'm not. I'm really not. Not yet, at least." She sighed. "I can't be some sort of idol or hero for him."

They stared at each other, Kyousuke's disappointment bringing her further down than she was feeling even two weeks ago.

"I think you let your parents and the others tell you you're weaker than you are, and you believe them." He struggled briefly to open the door and didn't look back at her. She winced.

Nakazawa was putting his coat on.

"Where are you going?" Kyousuke tried to hobble faster. "We haven't even started here yet!"

"No, but we're finished." He said very soberly. He opened the door and turned to leave.

"Don't go, Nakazawa." Sayaka interjected. He stopped in the doorway. "Please stay. I want you to stay." She said quietly; she wasn't sure if she meant it or not.

He turned around and looked at her eyes. She hated it when he did that; they knew each other too well so he'd probably be able to tell whether or not she really wanted him there. They knew the other better than they knew themselves.

Or at least they had.

He closed the door and took off his coat.

* * *

It was only that first stop that had been awful so far. Every other one had been pretty straight forward with one to four bodies. None of them were kids.

They were approaching the ninth stop. Things were almost going well for them for a while. Then the witch and familiars stepped up their game.

BUMP!

"Goddamit Yuma, keep those fucking things away!" Kyoko yelled back to the girl who probably couldn't hear her. Her torso was completely outside the sunroof.

The familiars were throwing things that looked like tomatoes and rotten food, but hit like bricks and smelled like something much, much more foul. They appeared to be aiming for the witch though, which would have been nice if the witch wasn't being more persistent in trying to knock them out; it nearly had while they were going under an underpass.

Needless to say, the car was no longer as sexy as it was when they started. The back bumper was completely gone (luckily with no license plate to identify it as theirs) and the fender was inverted; the trunk was destroyed to say the least. The front of the car had been hit by a rotten zucchini brick, seriously denting the front right part of the car and destroying that headlight. The car was also starting to make funny sounds as they drove.

"I'm tryING!" She shrieked at the end. Kyoko looked in the rear view mirror and saw what was going on; the familiars had thrown down a rope from their sort of hot air balloon and was trying to drag her out of the car.

_Oh no they fucking don't! _

Kyoko focused her magic as hard as she could to create a decoy of her on the damaged back of the car. It came out perfectly, and cut the rope with its spear, but disappeared immediately after. Kyoko was getting better at being able to materialize them, but she couldn't hold them up for long, particularly if she was trying to concentrate on something else too.

"Thanks!" Yuma chirped happily in the back seat. Kyoko materialized her own lance, with the head of the spear in the front and the shaft shattering the back windshield (_it was on its last legs anyways_). She made a diamond lattice to connect Yuma's waist to the shaft.

"Watch yourself! I can't do too much at once." Kyoko growled out. She wasn't really made at Yuma…she was just mad.

The pay-as-you-go phone rang a generic tone. She didn't need a specialized one to know who was calling. Only one person had this number.

"Tomi, I'm a bit busy right now." She gritted out. She knew exactly what he was calling about, and so she didn't appreciate the oncoming lecture.

"Don't say my name! According to the GPS, you are _behind schedule_. And where the hell have you been going?! Are you trying to get caught? For fuck's sakes, you're going forty kilometers over the speed limit right now!"

"Turn right in 200 meters." The GPS politely informed her.

"Kyoko, do you have an extra grief seed? I don't know how much longer I can keep up with this! There's too much!" Yuma yelled back. Kyoko ignored everything else as she fished for one of the extras they brought in the glove compartment. She handed it to Yuma before picking up the phone again.

"You never take this long, what are you doing?! We have a client to serve!" The Miyamotos' and Watanabe's words bounced around her head. _"We also know you're only getting forty percent"_.

_Yeah, 'we' my ass. _

"I've only had to deal with one 'package' at a time before! There were twelve at the first stop alone! This was already going to be a nightmare to begin with, and then you gave me this fucking_ tiny _car to do it! How the hell am I supposed to carry 'packages' anywhere?!"

"I wish there was something I could do about that but – "

"When you're the one getting sixty fucking percent, you'd think you'd be able to do some of the god-damned basics!" She snapped harshly.

There was silence on the phone as she focused on getting to the next destination. They were four minutes away, according to the GPS but realistically less than that if they kept going at this speed. The silly GPS assumed they would be following speed limits. _Ha!_

"Where did you hear that?" He asked tersely.

"None of your damn business. If you don't mind, _I_ need to get back to work." She hung up angrily and swerved around a narrow corner to pull up the next destination.

Yuma used a modified shock wave to force Kyoko's head down into the steering wheel. Hard. The fucking horn even beeped.

Kyoko was about to scream at her, to ask her what the hell her problem was, until she felt the familiar feeling of her own lance swinging right over her head to shatter the driver's side window and lop off the top of her head rest as the sound of glass shattering rang out behind her.

It was so easy for her to forget just how sharp that thing could be.

"Thanks Yu-" She looked in the rear view mirror and couldn't see her…at all.

"No problem!" She heard a faint yell from outside; she was sure the volume was loud, but the speed of the wind cut off most of it.

Kyoko whipped her head around to see that the spear was lodged into the interior wall of the car while the shaft was hanging outside with Yuma…hanging off the shaft a few feet from the car.

"GET BACK IN HERE!" Kyoko was confused as to how Yuma could have even gotten to that predicament.

Then she noticed the roof of the car was caved in beyond the sunroof.

How the hell had she missed _that_?

"No way, this is fun!" Yuma grinned, throwing shockwaves expertly into the falling debris and hitting the witch's car head on every time. Kyoko couldn't help but grin back.

"You're a fucking lunatic." She yelled back in good humour.

And then she heard sirens approaching.

_Oh shit. _

* * *

It was only the first bit that had been awful so far. After the dramatic situation had been diffused, they had a lovely meal (sushi, salad and desserts prepared by Hitomi, chips and dip prepared by Sayaka, chicken and noodles prepared by Nakazawa, surprisingly, and taiyaki bought by Kyousuke) and just talked on the couches. Having a few rounds of sake certainly helped things along too.

Sayaka figured she would fight with Nakazawa at some point during the night, so she had to pick her battles. Arguing about the fact that he draped his arm over the back of the couch so his arm was almost around her shoulder would not be one of them.

The moment he tried to put it around her shoulder, it would be.

"Would anyone like some green tea ice cream?" Hitomi asked pleasantly. "It's a new brand I've never tried before, so I was curious to see what it was like." _Living wild, I see. _

"Sure, I'll have some! Can't go wrong with ice cream." Sayaka smiled. The guys agreed and Hitomi served them two scoops each (Kyousuke's put in the microwaves for ten seconds to make it easier to eat) and drizzled a bit of chocolate syrup on top.

"Do you not have any more of the vanilla sauce?" Kyousuke asked with disappointment. Hitomi looked hurt.

"It doesn't really make that much of a difference, does it?" Nakazawa tried to hint pretty obviously.

"Well no, I suppose not, but I prefer the vanilla."

"You clearly shouldn't have missed Saotome-sensei's classes in eighth grade." Nakazawa sighed, shaking his head.

They changed topics, because that was what they called a 'danger topic', and were currently discussing out of body and paranormal experiences, which came up because of one of Hitomi's psychology or spirituality classes or whatever. Sayaka tried to understand everything she was talking about, she really did; it was just hard sometimes.

"The most fascinating thing is that the majority of patients who said they had seen ghosts said that the ghosts just looked like regular people; the ghosts did not look dead at all."

"Then how do they know they were ghosts? Couldn't they just have been people?" Sayaka asked as she watched Kyousuke struggle to pick up some noodles which he helped himself to again after ice cream. Sayaka suspected there may have been a dark ulterior motive to Nakazawa's choice of food offering.

"Well, they knew them when they were alive and knew they were dead, so they must have been ghosts." Hitomi explained.

"I saw a ghost once." Nakazawa said casually. Kyousuke stopped his battle with the noodles to look at Nakazawa with awe.

"Really? Where? Who? What were they like?"

"You guys know that old abandoned church in the Old Industrial District?" _Oh brother…_

"I've heard of it, but I can't say I know much about it." Hitomi admitted.

"That place isn't haunted. We stayed there plenty of times and didn't see anything!" Sayaka responded exasperatedly. She tried to fight the blush that was threatening to emerge when she _remembered _what they did some of the times they had stayed there. She wasn't sure what deity they would have been offending, but she was sure they must have been offending them unless it was some kind of pagan god of fertility.

"Shh." He shushed Sayaka. "Ok, so the story behind this place is there was this preacher who had amassed a huge cult following. People were going crazy; they were abandoning their families, their money, their jobs, _everything _for this guy. He had hundreds of people eating out of the palm of his hand!

"But the power was too much for him. He couldn't handle all of it and he went insane. He was even telling people that he lied to them and his daughter was a witch; people believed him but kept coming. Rumour had it there was a curse on the place that made people come back, no matter how hard they tried to escape it."

Sayaka rolled her eyes at the cursed church story. She had heard it a few times, but it never stopped being ridiculous.

"One day, he snapped. He murdered his wife and daughter, burned down their house, and hanged himself. His suicide released everyone else from the spell, but, the curse of that building wouldn't let his family's spirits leave. The building needed a sacrifice to make up for all of the followers the preacher was bringing in and lost. So their spirits are trapped in that church to this very day."

"And it's pure bullshit." Sayaka said bluntly.

"I'm not done yet! If the preacher and his family want to be released, they have to recruit three more spirits to take their place. So if you stay in the church on the anniversary of their death or on Halloween, when their spirits are strongest, the preacher might" Nakazawa made a throat slitting gesture "make sure you take their place. Meanwhile, his daughter, the one he said was a witch and murdered will try to save everyone by getting them to leave so her father won't find them and get them like he got her."

"Oh god, what is that smell? It reeks in here. It must be you, because you're so full of shit." Sayaka was likely the only person in the room who could say something like that and get a smile out of Nakazawa.

"I heard the murder-suicide happened, as well as the massive cult following." Hitomi stated excitedly. "We studied it in our group human behaviour course when we talked about collective obsession."

"I'm not denying that part's real; but the part about the curse and ghosts trapped there and trying to kill you is bullshit."

"Then how come people keep seeing the ghosts?" Nakazawa argued. It was harder to take him seriously when he started coughing; it sounded deep and full of phlegm. _Please don't get me sick _Sayaka tried her best to not outwardly cringe.

"What, so people go in and see the crazy preacher who tries to kill them?"

"No, but the spirit of the daughter is still there, and I saw her! She tried to get me to leave!" Nakazawa exclaimed. This had admittedly piqued Sayaka's curiosity, but she didn't show it. Kyousuke did.

"What was she like? Did she look dead?" Kyousuke asked with rapt attention.

"No, she looked alive. She was fuckable." Hitomi flinched. "Sorry Hitomi, she was 'aesthetically appealing'." He said making quotation marks with his fingers. Sayaka chuckled. "She was…kind of a bitch."

"How so?"

"Well, when she saw me, she was all like 'Hey, what the fuck are you doing here? Get lost! You can't be in here!' It was really rude."

"And you're sure she wasn't just a patrol from the city or something?" Sayaka asked. She had stayed at that church plenty of times, and nothing ever happened. The worst thing would be other street addicts stealing your stuff while you were passed out.

"She didn't have a uniform or anything, and I heard the daughter had red hair like her mother. One person said when she gets really mad, her face morphs into a demon's face. I heard one time she nearly killed a woman, and she's still institutionalized. The daughter can also raise the ghosts of the bodies in the graveyard behind the church to do her bidding. Other people say she has unnatural strength. Like this one time, she picked up a person three times her size and threw him across the street! Literally across the street! No human could do that. And it's true! I saw the guy after; he looked pretty beat up."

"And it was the same girl?"

"She's pretty distinctive looking. Not a lot of girls have crazy long red hair and red eyes." Sayaka could think of at least one.

"There's something that doesn't make sense to me though." Hitomi began.

"What?" Nakazawa asked, displeased that his credibility was being further challenged but by someone other than Sayaka. He coughed again, pounding his chest a bit with his fist.

"The girl; I'm assuming she looked like she was at least a teenager?" She said, and then looked down uncomfortably. "I would feel very uncomfortable if you would describe a child the way you did."

"I'm not a pedo! Yeah, she looked like she was at least seventeen or eighteen…it was a few years ago, so I was the same age-ish…that doesn't make me a pedo, right?" He looked unsure.

"No, you're fine, but that makes no sense for the daughter. His daughter was only seven when he murdered her. Even if her spirit could age, she would only be about thirteen now, right?"

"Wait, so when someone dies, do you think they stay the age they were when they died? Do they keep aging, like they don't even know they died? Or can they choose whatever age they want to be because they're dead?" Sayaka pondered.

"I hope it's the third one. If I die when I'm 90 and become a ghost, I'd rather wander the earth as a smoking hot young person than an old fart." Nakazawa replied while popping another piece of sushi in his mouth.

"I would too, but I don't think that would apply to this ghost." Kyousuke began. "I mean, under the third option, that's more like returning to state of being that you already were. This one would be creating a new state of being altogether. Like, she imagined this is what she would look like as a teenager, so that's the form she took."

"Ok, so it's like a ghost can look like anything they want to look like? I can see that. They're ghosts. They should be able to do that." Nakazawa reasoned.

"So going with that logic, could I make…enhancements to my ghost body?" Sayaka started to joke. "You know, maybe fill out a bit up here." She gestured to her breasts. "Shrink a bit down there." She gestured to her stomach. "Maybe fix up my nose and cheeks a bit. And walk through the world as a bombshell spirit for eternity without having to spend hundreds of thousands of yen on plastic surgery! Sounds like a win-win." She grinned.

"Maybe that's how so many models are insanely hot, you know? Maybe they never actually got plastic surgery; they just died and changed their bodies to their liking." Nakazawa laughed.

"One of the mysteries of the world has been solved." Kyousuke joined in. "If you could change your appearance in any way you wanted, do you think you could make yourself look like someone else altogether?"

"What do you mean? Like start your existence on earth as a new person altogether?" Sayaka asked. "I guess after living your own life in your own body for so long, it could be refreshing to change. Kind of like reincarnation but more morbid because you're actually dead."

"No, I mean like…look like someone who's already alive, you know? Get to live a life like them."

"So become a ghost to commit identity theft?" Nakazawa asked, perplexed.

"Basically, yeah! If I could, I would look exactly like that new Austrian composer Roderich Wentz. I would impersonate him, say I am releasing a new album, and then release the shittiest of shitty compositions." Kyousuke said, with a grin.

"What, why?" Hitomi looked appalled. The poor girl wasn't always the best at understanding their sense of humour. Sayaka rarely saw this side of Kyousuke herself, but she liked it when she did.

"He just seems like an ass. Needs to be knocked down a few pegs." He grinned. Nakazawa responded in kind, likely the reaction Kyousuke was trying to get.

"Take advantage of your newfound deadness and control over your physical appearance to ruin celebrities' careers? That sounds awesome! We should all die!" Nakazawa laughed, getting up to fist bump Kyousuke whose hands would always be too clenched to be able to high five.

As Nakazawa was leaning over the table to reach Kyousuke, a very small Ziploc bag, the size someone might put a pendant for sale in, fell out of his pocket and on to the table, right in front of Sayaka. The bag didn't have a pendant though; it contained a small pile of white powder Sayaka was all too familiar with.

Time seemed to stand still. No else seemed to notice that it fell except for Sayaka.

It felt like she was detoxing all over again. She could feel every pore in her back prickle, like she could feel the cold droplets of sweat being produced from each one. She could hear her heart's increasingly insistent pounding in her head. She couldn't focus on anything else aside from the bag sitting innocently on the table in front of her.

She had been having such a horrible time at work recently. A horrible, horrible time. Maybe just a hit? One little hit? She had been clean for 23 months, surely one little hit couldn't hurt that much, right?

No, she didn't have to take it. Of course not. She was only picking it up with trembling hands to look at it.

Maybe it wasn't actually heroin. Maybe it was something more legal, like baking soda? Maybe he just needed to bring a bit to a friend who was baking but didn't have all of the ingredients.

Sayaka should smell it a bit to make sure.

She had a bit of difficulty opening the bag; her fingers wouldn't be still enough for her to do it easily. She was very conscious of the way she was inhaling through her nose must harder than usual; her body was ready for it.

Just to make sure it was actually what it looked like, of course.

"Sayaka, NO!" Hitomi yelled, grabbing the bag from her when she wasn't expecting it. Hitomi marched straight into the bathroom with it. Sayaka sat on the couch in a stunned stupor, watching it get further and further from her grasp.

Hitomi was saying something. Her tone sounded angry, but she wasn't listening. She was focusing on Hitomi's hands.

Her hands that were about to drop the bag in the toilet.

But Sayaka didn't find out what it really was yet.

"NO!" Sayaka screamed savagely. She mostly jumped over the table, knocking it over in the process and launching the food and dishes everywhere. It didn't slow her down from getting to the bathroom.

But she was too late. Hitomi dropped it and had just pushed the flusher.

Sayaka shoved Hitomi to the side, reaching into the porcelain bowl to get it before the bag disappeared. She could feel the suction and water swirling around her hand; the constricting metal pipe that her hand and arm barely fit through; almost as much as she could feel the corner of the plastic bag just teasing her finger tips before it rushed past her reach.

The toilet made a strange sort of strangled sound, and then stopped.

Everything stopped.

Sayaka realized she had half her forearm buried in Hitomi's toilet.

Hitomi's eyes were wide with shock.

Sayaka felt embarrassed; more embarrassed than she felt in a long time; even more embarrassed than that time at the policy academy obstacle course when she tripped over one of the tires and managed to somehow kick the large, short cylinder of rubber into the face of her peer behind her. She tried to pull her arm out.

She couldn't. Her arm was stuck.

Half of her forearm was stuck in Hitomi's toilet. In front of Hitomi, Nakazawa and Kyousuke.

She whimpered pathetically as realization sunk in.

She fucked up, and she fucked up hard.

* * *

"What should we do?" Yuma yelled through the shattered windshield to Kyoko.

"Approaching destination on left in 100 meters." The GPS informed her.

_Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit._

She swerved into a narrow back alley, hoping that could keep her out of sight long enough to grab the bodies and go.

That wouldn't keep the witch out of sight though.

Kyoko then realized she had made the dumbest of dumb mistakes.

The alley was closed off by a brick wall.

The witch was facing them from the street, and could still fit in the alley.

She had literally put herself between a rock and a hard place.

Their car was _fucked _but they still had one more stop.

Yuma was still dangling off the side of car.

"Yuma, get off the car now!" Kyoko screamed as she dislodged her lance from the mangled door. Yuma was of course still connected to the spear by the string of diamond lattice, so Kyoko grabbed her with it and jumped up to a balcony, well above the witch's height, just in time to get out of the way of the witch-

Gently nudging their car forward at a maximum speed of three kilometers per hour?

The witch and their car were hidden in the alley. The familiars remained in their balloon.

The edge of the labyrinth came down; it looked like the steel wall of the stadium. It only blocked the edge of the opening of the alley.

The witch's car shut off. The familiars didn't make a sound.

The witch and familiars were _hiding them _from the cops.

"Have…have you ever seen something like this before?" Yuma whispered. Kyoko simply shook her head in response. She was apprehensive to say the least.

She couldn't see beyond the edge of the labyrinth, but she head the sirens get louder and pass right by them.

The sirens started to fade away into the opposite direction.

After a few more tense moments, the wall of the stadium disappeared and the witch backed out slowly, deliberately, and professionally so it was facing the way the cops went; the way they had been going before.

The familiars still didn't make a sound, but the slowly lowered the balloon so they were hovering slightly above the witch. The witch's car made quiet puttering sounds as it patiently waited.

"Wait here." Kyoko whispered to Yuma. "If they make any sudden movements, leave the car, and get out of here." Yuma nodded, eyes fixated on the peculiar witch.

Kyoko went inside. There were four bodies this time; all burly adult males who looked like less than reputable characters and were deader than door knobs. She didn't feel bad about their deaths at all.

She tied them up with a diamond lattice, and exited through the side door into the alley slowly.

Their poor Benz looked so beat up. It struggled and spluttered, but it was still on and going.

The witch and familiars appeared to be watching her as closely as she was watching them.

She slowly, deliberately walked towards them. With every step, she was ready to leap up the balcony and abandon the bodies on the ground, even if the whole world would see them.

The balloon extended a rope down to her, which split apart at the end so it looked like an open hand. It made no move to grab her. It just waited patiently right in front of her.

Kyoko's eyes glanced skeptically from the rubber rope hand to the witch to the air balloon. Her posture indicated that she was nervous and ready to run, like a cat with its back up.

She gently placed the bodies into the open rope hand and dissipated her diamond lattice holding it together. The rubber fingers closed around the bodies and pulled them into the balloon.

None of familiars made a sound or movement as the bodies were absorbed into the mass.

Kyoko could hear the phone ringing from the car. Tomi was probably freaking out again. She didn't take her eyes off of the witch or familiars as she slowly walked back to the car.

She could register from the quiet tapping of feet on metal that Yuma was descending from the balcony to the car too. Yuma stepped onto the crushed back while Kyoko walked backwards towards the driver's door. She reached to the unlocked door to open it.

The door fell off with a loud metal "clud" sound as she did. She folded her lips in, showing the awkwardness she felt. The rubber hand slowly reached down, extending its fingers in front of her, like it was offering to help but trying not to scare her.

She handed it the door, while still holding onto the handle. The hand accepted it, retracted itself as she let go of the door handle. Kyoko stepped into the car with the missing door, while still looking at the witch and its familiars suspiciously. She put the car into reverse, but didn't move.

"Are you ready, kid?" She whispered.

"Ready whenever you are." Yuma whispered back.

The car shrieked out of the alley. Kyoko quickly put it into drive and sped off ahead of the witch. About ten seconds later, the witch's car began roaring like a demon out of hell chasing after them. The familiars were screaming with excitement, throwing items down at them.

"Turn left in 500 meters." The GPS said in a pleasant voice that made Kyoko look forward to smashing the damn thing when they finished the last stop.

"That was weird as fuck." Kyoko yelled to Yuma, who she could tell agreed with her. Yuma was knocking debris into the witch, just as she did before.

* * *

"What should we do?" Kyousuke asked timidly from outside the bathroom. Sayaka felt so crowded. The bathroom wasn't very big and she, Hitomi, and Nakazawa were all in there with Kyousuke's wheelchair blocking the exit.

"We can't get her out of here like this. We need to call the fire department or police." Hitomi fretted. She hated having strangers in her home.

"NO!" Sayaka and Nakazawa yelled in unison, likely for different reasons.

"We should at least call your parents. Your mother owned a laundromat before, right? Maybe she knows something about plumbing?" Hitomi suggested with doubt.

It pained Sayaka to call them, but she knew they would find out anyways. She nodded, as she lowered her head to hand that wasn't stuck in shame.

_What a glorious daughter they have…_ She thought sarcastically.

"Let's try pulling one more time." Nakazawa said earnestly, like the fifteenth time clearly _must _be the charm. Hitomi wasn't even listening and was calling her parents. Sayaka was more inclined to think Hitomi's strategy was better.

"It's useless, Nakazawa. I haven't budged an inch." She said hopelessly. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kyousuke look at her with an expression that wasn't pity…

It was pure disappointment.

She closed her eyes and looked down at her arm. Her hand was probably insanely pruney by now.

"They're on their way. They just need to grab the tools they'll need. It sounds like your mother might actually be able to help!" Hitomi tried fruitlessly to lighten the mood. Everyone stayed silent and stoic.

"I also just cleaned that toilet today, so it shouldn't have _too _many bacteria in there." She continued on.

Sayaka groaned and bumped her head against the toilet lid in frustration.

* * *

Miraculously, the last stop went by without a hitch. Now they just had to drop off the car at the harbour and kill the witch.

Kyoko almost felt bad about killing the witch that had overall been surprisingly cooperative. It seemed like it just wanted to race.

Yes, she _almost _felt bad about it. But they had to expend so much magical energy tonight and they needed a grief seed.

Maybe one of the familiars fell off the balloon and would evolve into the witch; they could race again then, in loving memory of this night from hell.

They heard sirens again as they raced through a busier street in a nicer, metropolitan part of town. The store fronts glistened gold with their incandescent lights, showcasing beautiful clothing on faceless mannequins of unrealistic proportions.

They really did look a lot like the witch and the familiars following them.

"Son of a bitch." Kyoko muttered under her breath.

"I hear ya, sister." Yuma agreed.

"You're watching too many American shows again." Kyoko teased, rolling her eyes at her protégée's attempt at speaking "gangsta".

"We're drag racing. I thought it fit the mood." She replied calmly. She was sitting so her legs were dangling out of the destroyed back of the car while her butt was on a salvageable part of the back seat and her back was against the back of Kyoko's seat. The back of the car was essentially ripped open completely now, so she had a solid 180 degree view and aim from where she was. She lazily diverted debris into the witch; she was getting pretty tired too.

"This job would have been way better if we could have just taken the entire top off from the start." Yuma muttered with mild annoyance. "I had to do way more work than I would have if we had that other car."

"This job would have been way better if we can have taken a big van and dumped everything in the back to just haul out to a witch in a single location. _All _of this is way more work than we would have had if we had another car." Kyoko corrected. She was still pissed in general about the car of choice.

"What should we do about the cops that are coming?" Yuma asked casually.

"Turn right in 500 meters." The GPS reminded.

"Oh I am so ready to kill that fucking bitch!" Kyoko snapped. Yuma chuckled in the back.

"Seriously, what do we do?"

"Just make sure they don't catch us, I guess." Kyoko shrugged. The bodies were gone. The car was damaged beyond recognition. They had their hoods up so no one would see them. What could the cops really do?

"You know, it's kind of a nice breeze having that door gone." Yuma observed.

"Yeah, it is."

"Turn right in 100 meters." Kyoko growled in response.

Red and blue flashing lights came around the corner Kyoko had to turn at.

It didn't concern Kyoko that the cops were about to see them.

What concerned Kyoko is that the cops were about to T-bone the witch.

"Should we save them or let them go?" Yuma asked. Kyoko couldn't help but wonder if poor, unsuspecting and surprisingly cool Blue was one of the cops. She was going soft.

"Meh, save them."

Yuma shot off a wave, which made the cops' car flip backwards in the air twice before it landed and rolled onto its side. The siren died down anticlimactically.

"Jesus Christ Yuma." Kyoko said without any real bite in her voice as they sped down the street that would take them to the final drop.

"My bad." She replied as though she had just spilled a bit of milk instead of seriously damaging police property. She had done worse tonight.

The harbour was deserted and the car spluttered to a stop, as if grateful for the end of its abuse.

The witch screeched to a halt when it found them.

"Let's get this over with, shall we?" Kyoko grinned.

The witch's own window was destroyed after so many bricks hit it. Kyoko took advantage of that, throwing the _worthless, fucking GPS_ right at its head. It was a bullseye and the portable device shattered into pieces while the witch made a sort of low groaning sound, clutching its head.

Kyoko took the change to run at it, thrusting her spear right into its core. The witch didn't make a sound.

Kyoko stared at the faceless creature, as it just gave her a sort of respectful wave with its rubbery arm. Kyoko returned it as the witch, car, and familiars all disappeared, leaving behind a grief seed with a tire on it.

Both girls received a rush of endorphins after their soul gems were surprisingly fully cleansed from the one grief seed. Maybe feeding so many bodies to the witch made it stronger and made the grief seed bigger? Kyoko didn't know, but she felt great!

They heard and loud clank behind them as the car collapsed off its wheels. Kyoko and Yuma just looked at each other, and started laughing hysterically as they ran away from the scene, hoping to never see the car again.

"Let's get ice cream!" Yuma cheered childishly as they darted down side street after side street on foot. Kyoko wondered if she ever heard the kid say anything as smart as that before.

Two bucket parfaits later, they were strolling lazily down the street. They heard sirens in the distance again. Kyoko's phone rang again.

"Heyello?" She answered casually and pleasantly.

"WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO THE CAR?!"

* * *

Miraculously, Sayaka's parents didn't sound overly upset about all of this, according to Hitomi. In fact, based on Hitomi's rapport, they were relieved which didn't make any sense but she decided she would wait until she saw them to determine their feelings on this.

She just hoped they would hurry up, because things were breaking down here faster than she was expecting.

"I did NOT come here trying to get her hooked on the stuff again! I know you all think I'm a dumbass, but I'm not _fucking _dumb enough to try to tempt a goddamn _cop _with heroin! Also, believe it or not I'm not so bad a person as to try to take away everything she's gotten!" He yelled at Hitomi. Hitomi tried to be nonplussed, but it was difficult; she could deal with confrontation when she had to, but she didn't enjoy it by any means.

"I'm just saying I found it unnecessary to bring _anything _like that to an event where there is a recovering addict."

"Hitomi, come on, Sayaka's been clean for two years! How should he have known that she would have that much trouble?" Nakazawa gave him a look that indicated he was annoyed, but said nothing.

"Guys, stop fighting. It's not helping anything." Sayaka said, voice full of exasperation.

"That's not how it works, and you should know that by now Kyousuke! How many times do I need to tell you?"

Sayaka's annoyance was turning into anger. Half of the people in her life said she was strong enough after all this time to be fine; had faith in her. The other half thought she was a weakling who would relapse at any minute.

And guess which half she proved right.

She tried pulling her arm out again and nothing happened.

"I really am sorry. My dealer's in this area. I had no intention of showing you or trying to get you to do it with me." Nakazawa said quietly to her as he sat beside her. "Can you still feel your fingers or did an alligator eat them yet?" He tried weakly at a joke.

"No alligator's yet. Maybe a rat or two though." She joked mirthlessly. "And I know. I know you're not a bad person. You're just sick, like I am."

Nakazawa coughed again.

"How long have you had that cough? It sounds terrible." Sayaka wanted to change the topic.

"Just a few days. It's a bitch though. I know a few people who have it."

"Yeah, me too now. Turn that way." She gestured to the door with a hint of a smile on her face. "Don't get me sick too!"

"If I'm going down…" He emphasized his exhale more than he had to deliberately "you're going down with me!" He exhaled on her again.

"Baaaahhh!" She swatted at him with her free left hand.

The buzzer rang. Her parents were here.

"What the hell happened?" Her father asked authoritatively. As soon as his eyes settled on Nakazawa, they darkened. "You little son of a _bitch_! What are you doing here?!"

"It's not his fault! And I invited him." Kyousuke defended.

"Sayaka, you came when you knew you had a bad tie here?" Kenji was furious.

"I didn't know he was coming, and Dad for god's sakes he's sitting right here. Have some manners." This was turning into a gong show pretty quickly.

"Well forgive me for being rude to the bad influence that got you into this mess." He growled out.

Sayaka briefly thought of how ironic it was that her parents were so angry that Hitomi's family blamed all of Hitomi's problems on Sayaka, then blamed all of Sayaka's problems on Nakazawa.

"Relax sir, I'm going." Nakazawa forfeited as he got up and left as quickly as possible, closing the door gently behind him.

"It really was an accident Dad." She said.

"I don't care, it doesn't change what happened!" There was a pause. "What did happen, exactly?"

Hitomi and Kyousuke tried to quell her father's anger while her mother came over with a bucket of mystery items.

"I hope Hitomi cleaned this recently." Her mother scrunched her face. Sayaka was grateful she wasn't making a big deal of Nakazawa being there.

"As a matter of fact, she cleaned it today." Sayaka reassured. Her mother still put rubber gloves on as she started scooping out water into the tap. She got most of it out pretty quickly.

She then pulled out a tub of margarine and a thin, plastic scraper.

"Is there anything I can do to help? What are you doing?" Hitomi asked gently from behind her mother.

"Normally I'd use a plunger, but that only works when the blockage isn't actually…you." Sayaka smiled ruefully at her mother's attempt to be academic. Alas, they were not an intellectual bunch.

Sayaka could feel the lubricated scraper working along the circumference of her arm. She hoped it would get her arm slick enough to get it out.

"Alright sweetie, on the count of three, we're going to pull, alright. One…" Her mother grabbed her right shoulder while Hitomi grabbed her left. Sayaka poised her feet to get ready to help pull back too.

"Two…Three!" The yanked back as hard as they could. Sayaka's arm was yanked free, and her wrist made a sharp, painful _thud _against the mouth of the toilet. Her mother and Hitomi both fell ass-backwards into the tub behind them.

Sayaka bit her lip, trying not to cry out. She looked at her wrist, which hurt like a bitch.

"She's out!" Fumiko yelled triumphantly to Kenji.

"Great, now we can be too. Let's go."

"Come on Sweet Pea, let's go home." Her mother helped her up. Sayaka followed obediently.

"I really am sorry." Kyousuke said dejectedly. Sayaka paused, before reaching her left hand back to grab his and squeeze it discretely.

"I know. It's not your fault. I'm sorry this happened too. You were just trying to help." She said with a sad smile. She let go and ignored that for just a moment, he seem to want her to let go.

This was bad. Her right hand was really starting to swell up fast. It hurt as bad as the time she broke it when she was six. She had a bad feeling it was broken again now.

And at that moment, her phone rang. Not her personal phone. Her work phone. She took a quick glance at caller ID.

_Ryo _

_Oh shit. Why? Why now? Why, why, why, why, why? _

She answered with her left hand. Her father noticed her right hand, which she had elevated and resting on her chest. He made a gestured to it and she just shook her head, assuming he was trying say 'something's wrong! Let's go fix it now!'

"Officer Miki." She said as professionally as her voice would allow.

"Miki, we need you to come to the corner of 15th and 17th now." _What? Why? I'm not supposed to be on call tonight._

"What's going on Captain?"

"Just come here. This is the only scene where we actually have any evidence." _Huh? _

"Most…maybe all of the Black Dragon bosses have been taken out. A few of our undercover men were too. We have a very, very strong feeling that this could have something to do with a certain _suspect_ you're watching."

"Wa…wa…wait, our men? We lost officers?"

She sat down on a stool. She had to sit. Some people died doing the exact same thing she was doing; killed by someone _she _was supposed to be watching.

She let good people die.

_I let good people die. I should have been watching Kurosawa. I should have known about this. I should have -_

"Yeah Miki, we did. And from what we gather, we've lost over two dozen other people. Literally. We can't find bodies or traces anywhere. Only here. For now, at least. We're checking the other bosses' homes now, so hopefully we'll find more evidence. That's why we need you to come by now. We need as many officers on the scenes as possible, and I want you to look around to see if there's anything you can recognize as being a sign of Kurosawa's."

"Of course Captain. I'll be there right away."

"Do you need a ride?"

"Do you mind if I walk?" She wanted to get her mind off of things, including her fucking wrist.

"We'll be here for a while. As long as you're here within an hour, I'm fine. Sorry for interrupting your Saturday night." He hung up.

"Sayaka, I'm not sure what he just told you, but you are _not _going." Her father began to argue.

"Oh fuck _off _Dad! I have a job and this is way bigger than anything that happened here! I need to go." She wanted out. She wanted to get out of here so badly, and this was her best shot.

"Don't you speak to me that way young lady! We need to take you to a hospital for an x-ray!"

"Some of my co-workers are _dead _right now and I should have known this was coming! Being a conservative selfish little bitch is what got them that way in the first place! I need to go." She walked past him.

"Sayaka, you nearly relapsed and how on earth were you supposed to know that would happen! There is nothing that can be done and looking out for your own well-being is not stupid, it's just good sense. You haven't been doing that enough recently and maybe it's this new assignment – " Her mother argued.

"I'm _not _dropping it!"

"You thought someone was trying to murder you just two weeks ago!" Her mother screamed.

Sayaka looked and saw the stunned faces of Hitomi and Kyousuke looking at her.

"Sayaka…what's going on?" Hitomi asked nervously.

_I can't do this right now. _

Sayaka took off and ran down the stairs. She was glad it was dark out because it was quick and easy for her to disappear into a side street before her out-of-shape aging father who was hot on her heels could find her.

* * *

They had to lose them. There were suddenly cops swarming the streets, clearly in response to the string of take-downs.

Calling them take-downs was bullshit. They were murders. The cops were reacting to the string of murders.

"Let's split up!" Kyoko whispered to Yuma. "Meet at the park bench by the apartment in 30?"

Yuma nodded and went to take the more direct way. Yuma looked way more innocent than her. Kyoko looked down and noticed the hoodie she was wearing was stained with blood.

_Fuck!_

While the hoodie was dark, she didn't want to risk anything. She flipped it inside out so no blood was showing. It wasn't super obvious it was inside out though, so it was better to risk looking disorganized than it was to risk looking like a murderer.

She walked around, trying to stay out of plain sight for about fifteen minutes.

Her phone rang.

"What do you want now?"

"I have some whiskey at my place. Would you like to come? I'm afraid the cleaners at the restaurant didn't do their job right, so we can't go there. How about we just go to the countryside on our own for a bit?"

"The cleaners messed up? What do you mean they messed up?!"

"They didn't even show up to clean one of the rooms! The manager is furious that that happened and is looking to punish _everybody _involved. You should come to my place for some whiskey, and we can just get away for a bit."

Whiskey was the code for "car". In this case, "car to get the fuck out of town".

"Does…the manager…" Kyoko was trying to keep things going with code "know where I keep my alcohol and things?"

"The manager knows everything, so get all of your belongings, and come to my place for some whiskey now. Hell, bring your family too!"

Fuck. Kurosawa really did know about everything.

Kurosawa knew about Yuma.

Yuma was on her own.

Yuma!

Kyoko dialled Yuma's number that she had memorized long ago. Voicemail.

"Yuma for fuck's sake call me back as soon as you get this! Don't go to the apartment! I repeat: do NOT go to the apartment!"

Kyoko was freaking out. She knew Yuma could take out a bunch of goons no problem if she knew they were there.

But that was it: she had no idea they were there.

And Kyoko was willing to bet her father's church that the girl had left her phone in their apartment.

Kyoko pulled on her hair. She had to do something. She absolutely had to do something.

She could do something. She hated it, but she could do this.

"_Kyubey!"_ She called out telepathically.

"_What can I help you with Kyoko?_" It immediately appeared beside her.

"_I need you to help me find Yuma._"

* * *

She had to lose them. Sayaka had been trying so hard to run through the alleys that she got lost along the way. If she was lost, surely they couldn't find her, right?

There was way, way too much pressure right now.

So she was running away from it like the coward she was, naturally.

She felt herself crumbling and fell to the ground in a sobbing heap. _I am so pathetic. _

"Are you ok?"

Sayaka looked up and saw a familiar green-haired girl. Kyoko's sister?

"Hi, uh yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just having a rough night is all." She used her left hand to wipe away her tears. _Crying in front of a teenager; look at me in all my glory! _

"I knew it. It was you in the park the other day!" She said with a proud (_?_) grin. "How have you been Sayaka?"

_Wait, what? _

"I'm…sorry I don't remember meeting you." Sayaka said with some confusion. "Aside from the park the other day. Did I introduce myself then?" _Or the time I was dressed as a stripper outside your classroom, but I don't think you saw me or can recognize me…right? _The now mysterious girl smiled back.

"We met a while ago. Don't worry. How have you been? Have you been staying out of trouble?"

"What kind of trouble?" Sayaka was all sorts of confused right now.

"Well, you know…drugs? Have you been staying away from drugs?"

_Who the hell is this girl? _

"Yeah…mostly. I slipped up tonight, I mean, but…"

"You don't seem high at all."

"No, I'm not. I didn't do the drugs. I didn't get to." The girl looked a bit perplexed.

"Well, you didn't do them; that's what matters. What happened to your wrist?"

"That's kind of why I didn't do it. Listen, I'm really sorry, but I really don't remember meeting you and I really have no idea how you know I was an addict. I'm not trying to be rude at all, but where have we met?"

Kyoko's sister laughed.

"Yeah, you were really, really out of it before. Can I see your wrist?" She reached forward to grab it, clearly not taking any objections.

"No, really I think it might be – " Sayaka gasped as a very pleasant, refreshing feeling came over her hand as her wrist seemed to fit almost magically back into place. Was this girl an osteopath?

Sayaka looked at her hand. The swelling had basically disappeared and her hand and fingers moved perfectly. It felt even stronger than it had been before.

"How…who are you?"

"I'm Yuma." She smiled. She reached forward, eyes closed, brows furrowed and put a hand on Sayaka's chest for two minutes. Were this any other situation, she might find it inappropriate. This somehow felt more like going to the doctor's for a checkup though and she said nothing.

"You're still good! Haha, cool!" She smiled brightly. "That's awesome!" It almost seemed like she was boasting…but about what?

"Uh, that's great? Yuma, I'm sorry, but could you explain to me what's going on? I really, really appreciate what you just did for my wrist and all. Seriously, you have the hands of an angel, but what…?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Just think of it as a strange occurrence and carry on." She got up, still smiling cheerfully. "I hope your night gets better, Sayaka!" Saying this, she got up and ran off.

"Thank you!" Sayaka yelled back, still feeling very confused. She contemplated running after her and trying to question her a bit more; put those interrogation classes to good use. She decided against it and to go to work; she had to admit that she did feel a lot better.

If she had followed Yuma, she might have noticed a black sedan had stopped, while a passenger opened the door, throwing a cloth over the girl's mouth and pulling her inside before driving off into the night.

* * *

Kyoko was sprinting through the streets towards her apartment. She didn't give a fuck that she was walking straight into Kurosawa's trap. She wouldn't…couldn't let Yuma get caught up in this shit further than she had been.

Her phone rang again. _God fucking dammit Tomi! _

"Tomi, just hold on! I'll be there in a bit I just need to find –"

"When you have a phone specifically to commit illegal acts, you'd think you'd get caller ID to be safe. Or are you just not paying attention?" A woman's voice said calmly.

A woman's voice she recognized.

If Kyoko weren't in such a rush, she might have stopped for a second.

"What do you want Miyamoto?"

"I want you to tell me where you are and we'll come pick you up. I hope you're not heading to your place, and I _certainly _hope you're not heading to Tomi's where Kurosawa's waiting for you to bring your sister." She continued.

Now Kyoko stopped running.

"What do you know? What the hell is going on?"

"If you haven't figured it out, I've got something of an inside connection on Kurosawa's end. He's pissed about tonight because things went wrong; nothing to do with your work of course. I don't know what he's doing with you and Tomi, but he wants to deal with you _personally_. He sent some of his other goons to your place."

"Does he have – "

"Kyoko? It's me." Yuma. Yuma was on the phone. "I'm fine. I don't know what's going on, but I'm with this lady and a friend of hers…"

"Hello!" Tsubasa greeted amicably.

"What the hell are you doing with her?!"

"Absolutely nothing. We don't hurt family, remember? Now tell me where you are and we'll come get you too."

She didn't trust them. She didn't trust _anyone_. But they had Yuma, and she had to be with her.

"I'm at 12th and 17th. By the Indian food place."

"Great. Now here's what you're going to do. Tomi has a tracker in your phone and Kurosawa's guys are on their way to come get you right now." _What?! _"You are going to call Tomi, tell him you found alternative plans for lodgings or whatever, break the phone, and run _fast _to 10th and 16th. We'll get you there. Do you understand?"

"Yeah. Yeah I do. Thanks."

They hung up and she dialled Tomi's number…again from memory.

"Where are you?"

"I have other drinking plans for tonight. Sorry. Maybe another time?"

"What? No, no, no, no NO you can't do this! Please help -!" Kyoko hung up. Tomi was fucked. She wasn't going to be like him.

She broke the phone, threw it out, and sprinted to the rendez-vous.

_I'm so deep. I'm way to fucking deep. _

If he had turned around, she might have seen a blue-haired solution to her problem running down the street.

* * *

Sayaka was sprinting through the streets. She had wasted way too much time with arguing with her family, running away from them, and then talking to Yuma, who she decided may be the oddest but most talented teenager on the planet.

There was crime tape and flashing lights everywhere. People in blue uniforms she frankly missed wearing were standing guard. She walked up confidently to the tape.

"Excuse me ma'am you can't –"

"She's a cop, let her through." Ayumi cut off the officer she didn't recognize. "We had to call in some back-up from Mitakihara. Some of the victims were from their city and force." _Oh god…_

"What happened to your face?! Are you okay?" Sayaka asked, confused. Ayumi looked like she was developing a mean looking black eye and she had a neck brack on. She couldn't understand how finding murder scenes would lead to a swelling eye and a hurt neck.

"Something very, very weird happened to our car when we were tracking down some drag racers...I don't want to talk about it."

"Oh. Okay. Is the car ok?"

There was a brief pause.

"No."

"Oh. That's too bad."

"Yeah."

The stared at each other for an awkward moment.

"Miki, glad you're hear." Ryo came up from behind her. She nearly jumped out of her skin. _Why does he keep doing that?_

"Heya Captain!" She said while trying to regulate her heartbeat again. She remembered exactly why she was here. "Uh…I'm very sorry that this happened." She said, genuinely apologetic.

"It wasn't you. It wasn't your fault at all. It would have taken someone very, very deep to know about this and for guys like this, I'm honestly not sure I'd ever want one of my own agents that far in. Miki, I want to warn you…it's not pretty in there. There are no bodies, but you can still see everything that's left. It's still a lot. Are you sure you're strong enough?"

Sayaka was willing to bet he wouldn't ask a male officer that question. That being said, it was a damn good question.

"Yeah. I think so." _Liar. _

The front hall of the building looked normal and inconspicuous. There was a closed door with holes (_bullet holes_) and she knew that that was where all of the mess was. She took a deep breath, put on the gloves, goggles, masks and slippers the forensics guys gave to her, and went inside.

It was surreal, to say the least, seeing all of the blood on the walls. It reminded her of the time she and Nakazawa had played paintball…but this time it wasn't paint; it was blood. It was hard to think of it as blood that had belonged to a person, inside of them just a few hours before.

There were tentfold papers on the ground with numbers. By each paper was some debris. No, not debris; they were white shards of bone. By each tentfold paper on the ground, there were shards of bone and…was that a tooth?

The most disturbing one had been seeing a pair of broken eyeglasses. Those felt the most human to her; more so than the bits of biological material that she never saw outside of a person scattered across the room.

Turning around, she saw something pink in the corner of the room. She looked and it more closely; it almost looked like a strawberry fondant.

_Holy shit that's a piece of a brain. _

She had never showed up for grade 11 biology, but maybe if she had that wouldn't look so strange to her.

She wasn't grossed out. It was just strange.

"Is there anything in here that screams 'Kurosawa' to you?"

She looked around and thought.

Nothing. Not a thing could specifically say 'Kurosawa' over some other kind of murdered. Which was frustrating as hell, because she was sure it was him.

"I don't see anything in here. I'll look around the house to see if I can find anything."

Ryo nodded and went back to talking to some of the forensics guys.

Sayaka went up some stairs. They appeared to all be bedrooms; two on the right and three on the left. It seemed odd that it was uneven, but she wasn't here to critique architecture. She looked through the rooms and didn't see anything amiss.

As she exited the last room on the left, she noticed there were three rooms on the right. _What the hell? I was positive there were only two. _

She had a feeling there was going to be something in that third room.

_Fuck, I don't have my gun. _

She heard a child crying. Her guard went down and she opened the door.

"Oko!" The little boy cried. "Oko!"

Sayaka looked around the barren room, seeing nothing wrong (_Doesn't look like there's anyone in here ready to kill me_).

In the corner, she noticed a bag filled with a suspicious white powder. She looked at the baby who was looking at her with wide, innocent eyes."Oko!"

She shook her head, deciding to try her best to ignore the bag in the corner. But she had trouble moving. Her eyes kept glancing over at it though. _Not now. Not ever. _

"There's something up here!" She yelled. She trusted that having other people in the room could get it out.

Forensics and Ryo came running up the stairs into the room.

"What the hell? There was a kid in here? How did we not notice?" The forensics guys speculated amongst themselves.

The baby was screaming more, afraid of the men in the white body suits and blue masks. Sayaka took her gloves, mask, and goggles off. The baby seemed to calm down a bit seeing someone more human-looking. "Oko?"

"No, not Oko. Sorry." Sayaka assumed that was a family member of some sort. She hoped he still had one.

He reached his arms up, wanting to be picked up. Her face softened more as she complied.

"You've had a crazy night too, haven't you?" She thought of the blood and shattered pieces of bone downstairs. "Probably a lot worse than mine."

He gurgled at her contentedly.

She noticed as she went down the stairs that he started fussing more, particularly when they passed by the door to the room with the bloodshed he started screaming blue murder. Walking outside, he was nervous, but calmed down immediately once they were there.

Sayaka strongly suspected the kid had seen something, but she wasn't sure what.

An infant witness wouldn't get them very far at all.

"Any idea who the kid is?" Sayaka asked Ryo as he left the building.

"Not a clue. We don't even know who the victims were because there are no bodies anywhere. We're just pretty sure they're all dead." He sighed in frustration. "I've never seen anything like this before; all on a _single _night." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Every level of police is going to get involved with this; municipal, regional, and federal. This is going to be a shit show."

The child snuggled against her, content to be held. She was surprised by how outgoing he was. She remembered her parents telling her once that she was an outgoing child.

Her parents who she had literally run away from after telling them to fuck off.

_Ugh, brunch tomorrow is going to be so awkward. _

* * *

Kyoko knocked on the door to the Miyamotos' home office hesitantly. She felt like she was walking straight into a trap.

They had given her and Yuma a room at their private residence, which had plenty of bodyguards. They also assured her that Kurosawa had never been here and had no idea they were even here. They suspected he knew this place existed though.

"Come in!" Tsubasa yelled in a friendly manner. It didn't fit the situation at hand. "Have a seat, please Ophelia."

She did, and was not liking the turn this night had taken at all.

"I hope your room is to your liking?" He asked pleasantly.

"Yeah, it's great. Thanks."

"I'm going to cut the shit because you know just as well as I do that you don't want to be here. And that's fine; under most circumstances, I wouldn't want you here." A part of Kyoko strangely appreciated Suki's honesty and bluntness. It was way less bullshit to get through. "Want to know what happened, from what I understand?"

Kyoko nodded.

"Kurosawa set the payment for the hitmen as a price per head. He didn't specify _which _heads, he just gave them locations. So naturally, the hitmen became overzealous and killed everyone."

"It sends a strong message indeed." Tsubasa added.

"Even if you had been right behind the hitmen the entire time, it wouldn't have given the cleaners nearly enough time to get everything in order. They were told each location would have one to two corpses, and that's all they brought manpower for. From what I heard, the leader of the cleaners told them to just ignore the first location altogether after seeing it to focus on the others."

"When did the cleaners get to the first location?" Kyoko asked.

"Before you did. You weren't perfect either, by any means because you were behind schedule, but in the grand scheme of things it wasn't you that screwed up. If it makes you feel better, I don't think Kurosawa thinks you messed up badly either. If he did, he wouldn't be trying to deal with you personally. He'd send in underlings."

"What's happening to the hitmen and cleaners?"

"They're being dealt with by underlings." Kyoko was just glad she wasn't them.

"I don't know what Kurosawa was thinking. He put five cleaners on staff which would have been nearly impossible even if they had just had one death per location. Cleaning messes, particularly when they're from gunshots are nasty business." Tsubasa appeared to speak from experience. Kyoko didn't ask for details.

"Are you sure your source with Kurosawa's reliable?" Kyoko asked skeptically. She didn't want information from someone who was going to feed them shit.

"I'm not worried about that." Suki replied cryptically.

"Is my information safe with you?"

"That's up to you to decide. But unlike Kurosawa, we've _never _had a problem with a rat, as I'm sure you know. We haven't hired you once for that." She said with pride. It was true though. From what she'd heard, the Miyamotos never had a rat.

She suspected their staff got extra perks with their "loot" to keep them happy.

"Hell, a lot of his better staff come over to work for us!" She went on. "We're simply better to work for. Which is why we wanted to talk to you."

"I don't want to work for you." Kyoko said firmly.

"That's fine for now. I hope you'll change your mind. But remember this:" Suki leaned in, as if whispering a secret. "We saved your asses tonight. You owe us a favour."

Kyoko suppressed the shiver that wanted to go down her spine.

"Alright, so whaddya want? Let's hear it." Kyoko asked impatiently. She wanted it done and over with.

"Nothing yet. I'll let you know when. Besides, if we do anything too big too soon, it may attract the attention of the wrong people." Tsubasa warned. He was right though.

"We'll let you know, and we'll keep an eye on Kurosawa. We will keep you and your sister safe. You have our word." Suki promised. Kyoko felt she believed them, but she also had the feeling she was making a deal with the devil doing this. _Kyubey all over again. _

By the time she got back to her room, ready to sleep, it was 5:00 am.

"Kyoko…please tell me. What's going on?" Yuma asked sleepily and nervously.

"Let's talk about it when we wake up." Kyoko yawned. She collapsed next to her sister, draping an arm protectively over her and went straight to sleep. She didn't want to get into it right now.

* * *

Sayaka knocked on the door to Ryo's office hesitantly. She knew that essentially, everything had gone to hell over the weekend and they needed to have a meeting about it.

"Come in Miki." He yelled from inside. She complied, closing the door behind her.

"Here's where we're at now. It looks like a total of forty-three people are missing, five of whom were undercovers either from Kazamino or Mitakihara. Everyone is positive Kurosawa's behind it, but we don't have any proof as usual."

Sayaka nodded, not liking where this was going. Yesterday's brunch with her parents had been brutally awkward and ended in them literally begging her to drop this assignment. She lied when she said she was strongly considering it...but she wanted to.

"We have been able to get some fantastic information through you. You are our best shot at this. With the Black Dragons down, Kurosawa will be free to dominate the illegal drugs market. I'm particularly concerned about this Watanabe, the "international logistics" guy you talked about, and I don't like the role he's probably going to be playing in this."

Sayaka nodded again politely. _This is not looking good at all…_

"The problem with your assignment is that you're not there very often, and when you are there, it's not guaranteed they will be. I don't want you focusing on any of the small fry you were sent in there for."

_Oh shit. _

"We need you to try branching out beyond the club as Rin, if possible. Miki, not only will this be great for your career, but you can avenge the lives of some good men and save others who would have been killed by these people!"

"Captain, thank you for having so much faith in me. I mean it. But I really don't know if I can do that. The rules at the club are pretty clear that we don't start anything with clients." She felt like she was coming up with excuses. _I am such a coward. _

"Miki, five officers are _dead. _You can break a few rules. The Kurosawas have broken every damn one in the book! That's why they keep winning!" Ryo's voice was rising. "Do you know why I picked you for this, Miki?"

"I was the best on the pole?" She asked, not sure if she was trying to make a joke or not.

"Out of all of the candidates, you were the one who had something to _prove_. I know about your past experience with drugs. We had to check your medical records, and I know it damn near killed you. According to every statistic out there, you should be dead or locked up right now. Instead, you're a very respectable cop."

She honestly doubted the 'respectable' part, but everything else was shaking her to the core.

"Do you know how I got so deep into my undercover position when I started out? Between you and me, I used to be a criminal; I was an intermediary dealer and a pretty good one. It was only after my brother got shot by another gang that I decided to get out and try to bring the whole market down. I got into the force because I never got caught and never had a record. I got the undercover assignment right away because I had a captain who believed in me the same way I believe in you."

She was stunned. She didn't know about any of that.

"I got all of the guys in my ring and the guys who shot my brother behind bars. It was the best day of my life and will probably be the greatest accomplishment I'll ever achieve. This is your chance for that kind of accomplishment Miki. I would hate for you to be on parking duty for the next ten years while these tyrants run wild. I would hate for you to look back and wonder 'if I had kept going, would I have gotten them?'. Because you know what? You would have. You _will _get them. But you have to keep going. Miki, please tell me; are you as brave as I think you are?"

She was speechless. Absolutely speechless.

She nodded dumbly, before her expression was of pure determination.

He was right. If she quit now, she would regret it for the rest of her life.

Any regret now would just be for the short term.

She wouldn't regret _anything_.

* * *

"You don't need to worry about this, Ophelia. I don't want to hurt you. I really just want to talk. I have no idea where you got the idea that I had bad intentions." Kurosawa said, looking at her distrustfully.

The two Kurosawas, Kyoko, and Tomi were sitting in Tomi's office at the club. She had been avoiding this for three weeks, ignoring the awkwardness she felt whenever she found excuses to not do private shows for him.

She had thought about running away and quitting. She really, really wanted to. But she needed to get the money for the church, and the Miyamotos didn't want her to leave either. She had no idea why they insisted she stick around though.

She got her and Yuma a new apartment. She wondered how long it would take before they all found the new one.

They probably already did; who was she kidding?

"You can't blame me for being nervous when I heard you were going after my family. I didn't even know you knew she existed." _Might as well be honest since we all know everything. _

"You never gave me a reason to bring it up. In fact, this wasn't even a reason to bring it up. It was our dear mutual friend who told you to bring her. I had no part in that." Kurosawa shrugged.

Kyoko looked at Tomi imploringly. He looked away ashamed. _You little shit! _

"Why did you go over to Tomi's and ask to speak to both of us then?"

Tomi was like Kyoko; he had thought his home address was a secret.

They were both fools.

"Whether or not the job had gone well, I would have spoken to you two. Of course I'm glad that all of the bodies are gone; in fact I'm impressed you managed to hide all of them; my men went overboard and they are being dealt with." Kyoko didn't even want to know what he meant by that, but she had a pretty good idea. "I'll give you a bonus 12,500,000 yen for your work Ophelia."

She didn't trust him. She didn't trust him at all. But she nodded, accepting it. Every bit helped.

"I wanted to talk about changing the nature of our professional relationship." He smiled diplomatically. "As I know you know, though I don't know _how _you know, as contractors I pay Tomi sixty percent and you forty percent for the work you do. Since we're going to be expanding our operations, I think my costs are going to be increasing, so I want to find places to cut them."

Kyoko didn't like where this was going at all.

"And since I'm the only _real _client you will have, why have you as contractors when I could have you as employees and cut out all the service fees? This seems much more straightforward to me."

Tomi was spluttering with indignation behind his desk. Kyoko just narrowed her eyes.

"So if I'm an employee, are you going to give me the full 100% now? You won't need him anymore. But you're going to need me."

Tomi guffawed.

"For your work, you're right Tomi will have no part in that. I need him for other services which we will discuss separately. As for you, you'll keep getting what you're getting and be _happy_. Some of my other new staff are taking pay cuts and are kissing my shoes in gratitude. I'm being as generous as I am because of our history."

"And what if we say no?" Kyoko tested the waters.

"That's up to you." He shrugged noncommittally.

She didn't trust him for a second. She waited patiently.

"Yuma must be happy living in an apartment that's less of a walk to school. And Tomi, your new villa is divine! Those drapes really match your eyes." He mocked.

She fucking knew it.

Tomi looked like he was about to cry.

"I would ask you both to sign contracts, but I know how much you hate a paper trail Tomi. Will this be adequate for a verbal agreement?" His smile never left his face.

Kyoko was _seething_. She and Tomi nodded their consent.

"I'm so glad to have you both on board. You'll be getting a monthly wage of 7,500,000 yen, which I think is more than fair to keep you employed for me and _only _me. For any jobs you do, I'll give you more if you earn a bonus."

_That's not what you fucking said before. _

She was angry, but she knew there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it.

"On the other hand, if your work is unsatisfactory, I'll have to penalize you. For example: what you did to that car, Ophelia, was unacceptable. Not only was that car very expensive, but driving around in such a damaged vehicle attracted attention and did nothing to help our image."

"You were _trying _to brand yourself while I was hiding bodies?!" She asked incredulously. She'd suspected it, but she was hoping he wasn't _that _much of an idiot.

"I was trying to warn potential competitors of what could happen if they try to come on my turf." He said with a bite. "And it will do you well to not criticize my practices. That's not what you're _paid_ to do. But for your recklessness with the car, you are being penalized 25,000,000 yen."

"That's…that's the entire second payment and the bonus."

"Exactly. So I owe you _nothing._" He glared at her briefly before smirking cockily.

"Just so you both know, as employees I will be ensuring you have proper security against the police and any other threats. Abide by your contracts, and you will be safe. Now, I'm going back to the Miyamotos. Come with me Koko. I'd like another show from you and Precious tonight."

He gestured for her to walk in front of him. She could feel his eyes leering at her ass, which was more exposed in today's black leather dominatrix costume than usual; she could also distinctly feel that the biggest threat to her and Yuma was looming over her at every turn.

The younger Kurosawa never said a word.

* * *

"_You don't need to worry about this, Sayaka. You've got this."_ She said to herself as she stared at the reflection that didn't look her at all. The pouty-lipped blonde doll stared back, looking particularly pretty in a strapless green lace dress. If the skirt were (much) longer, she might have looked elegant. She was trying to shake a bad feeling that had been throwing her stomach in knots all day.

"Good evening Precious. How have you been?" Geisha asked, wearing another kimono. Sayaka had no idea where she even found those; she'd been exploring the costume closets over the month and a half she worked at Tomi's and never saw them anywhere.

"Good, good!" _Kind of. _"How about you? I haven't seen you since that first time. It's nice to see you again." She wasn't technically lying. She didn't care much one way or the other since she wasn't used to seeing her.

"I am glad to have at least one friend here."

The red light started flashing. The shifts were changing.

They had both already been booked for Room B. Sayaka picked up chicken wings and sake before going up.

In front of the door, she took a deep breath in and out. She'd done this well over a dozen times now, but her nerves never seemed to dissipate. She had a sinking feeling in her gut tonight though, like something was going to go wrong.

"You seem tense. If you are not comfortable, you should leave."

Sayaka laughed mirthlessly.

"No, I'm fine. Thanks for your concern." She chose to disregard the suspicion that this girl was just trying to steal her client.

She rushed into the room, hoping to not raise suspicions from the girl who barely worked there at all.

She was surprised when she entered to see two faces who weren't normally there, but she recognized both of them.

Magumi Akihiro, the rat-faced drug dealing underling of Kurosawa was there. She had only seem him the one time, and hadn't cared to see him again considering that she had much bigger fish to fry now.

Atahiko Osamu was another matter now. He was a tall, sturdily built bald man; he looked like a golem. He looked exactly like the mugshot they had of him when he was arrested for suspicions of human trafficking (released based on lack of evidence) five years ago. The only difference from the photo was a long, deep, thin scar on his left cheek.

"You're a new one here". He grunted.

"My name is Precious. It's a pleasure to meet you sir. What's your name?" She tried to sound sweet. She tried to pretend she didn't know _exactly _what he did for a living, being that he stole addict girls like she once was and sold them.

"Atahiko. Is that sake? I need a drink."

She served everyone drinks, hating the way to Magumi and Atahiko were obviously staring down the front of her dress, which was admittedly the desired effect of the low neckline; didn't mean she had to like it though.

A sultry jazz tune started playing. She looked up to see Kyoko swaying her hips as she approached her.

"Everyone wants another show, Precious." She stage whispered seductively. Sayaka thought she noticed something not quite right about Kyoko; she didn't seem happy at all. "Don't be afraid to back out whenever you want to." She whispered more discretely. Sayaka nodded back.

No one was talking as they performed on the small circular stage. Sayaka was on her knees, back pressed against Kyoko's chest using her left arm to hold onto the pole to not fall forward. It was easier for everybody to watch Kyoko fondle her breasts and other parts.

"Are you okay?" Sayaka whispered. Kyoko laughed mirthlessly.

"I'm the one supposed to ask you that. Just go with this. If you're comfortable."

Even though Sayaka had been on the receiving end of this treatment a few times now, she always felt her knees buckle when Kyoko worked her neck. Kyoko had a tongue the gods must have given as a blessing to mankind (she knew from firsthand experience), which would lick her gently between bites from her sharp fang. There was something about the combination of a little pain and a _lot _of pleasure that made the bottom of Sayaka's core throb embarrassingly more than she would have liked.

Kyoko, the smug bitch, loved it.

The dress got pushed down a bit, revealing her hardened nipples to their audience. Sayaka fought the urge to keep her eyes closed. She opened them, staring directly at the younger Kurosawa through a veil of simulated blonde locks that were falling into her eyes. She had to admit she was grateful for them; it made it easier to pretend it wasn't her doing this in front of a group of hardened criminals.

"She's not excited enough, Koko." Suki said, without any bite in her voice. She didn't seem to be looking directly at them; more at somewhere above Sayaka's left shoulder.

"You're not helping." Kyoko quipped back. She guided Sayaka's face so they were looking at each other; only each other and no one else. "Are you sure you're still ok?"

"Yeah. Just a bit distracted is all." She said under her breath.

"I'll take care of that." Kyoko grinned (though it seemed forced) before kissing her lips, tugging at her bottom lip to ask for entry.

This kind of thing, Sayaka didn't mind at all. When it was just the two of them, it was fine (more than fine actually, though she wouldn't admit that out loud).

She felt that devilish fang nick her lips. The gasp of surprise probably sounded like a gasp of arousal, if Kyoko's smirk was anything to go by.

Her left hand slipped from the pole as she let herself be pushed down gently. Kyoko had somehow at some point (_seriously, when did she do that?) _snuck her own leg between Sayaka's.

With one of the redhead's hands playing with her pert nipples and the other rubbing gently around her clit, Sayaka felt like she was being played like an instrument. She was completely exposed, with one arm reaching back to grasp at the back of Kyoko's neck and her same leg behind Kyoko's to keep her own apart. If her deepening, quickening breaths were anything to go by, Kyoko might have been almost as talented a musician as Kyousuke was.

The tingling turned to throbbing, and reached a crescendo after what felt like no time at all. Sayaka came with a high pitched breath and a shudder that wracked her whole body.

The crowd made their presence known by cheering, like they did every. Single. Fucking. Time.

Sayaka looked up at Kyoko, only to look away blushing when she saw the over confident girl licking her fingers with a mischievous grin. That damn fang even glimmered, only adding to the effect.

"You're an ass." Sayaka said softly.

"An ass who's great in bed, thank you very much."

"This club has gotten so much better since last time I was here." Atahiko grinned drunkenly. Sayaka resisted the urge to sneer.

The group of criminals laughed over seemingly friendly bantering and chicken wings. A girl Sayaka didn't really remember was invited in to dance on the pole while the semi-regular girls (her, Kyoko, Lady, and Geisha) sat with the clients, or in Kyoko's case gave a lap dance to the elder Kurosawa. Sayaka noticed the particularly dark look Kyoko gave to the ground, particularly when Kurosawa's hands started to wander. Kurosawa was generally very respectful of the no touching rule.

"Koko, I miss you, come here." Sayaka pouted.

"She's busy." Kurosawa said dangerously. His hands were also getting dangerously high on Kyoko's thighs.

"Please." She stuck her bottom lip out. She felt obnoxious, but hey, it worked with her stage persona, right?

"Come on, stop being such a dick!" Watanabe laughed. He was getting _quite _drunk, joining Atahiko. "They had a special moment, everyone wants to cuddle after that!"

Kurosawa lifted his hands and Kyoko crawled over the man's son to join her. It was a funny change of pace to have Kyoko sitting in her lap instead of the other way around.

"Thanks." She whispered as she pretended to kiss her ear.

"James-sa…James" Geisha corrected herself. "What brought you from America to here? I always wondered why someone would leave a place as magical as San Diego for here?"

"Honestly? I came here looking for treasure!" He laughed uproariously, Atahiko joining him like it was the funniest joke in the world.

"There's piles of treasure here! I find some more every month!" Atakhiko said while making a thrusting motion with his hips. James wheezed with tears in his eyes. _It really wasn't that good of a joke. _

"Seriously, I'm curious man. I'm curious. What's the quality of girls that you can really get from the street?" James asked.

_Fuck, I wish I wish I wish I was wearing a wire right now!_

"Well obviously you won't fetch as high a price as you would for a completely clean non-addict." Suki began. "You can get about four times the price for a non-addict, but you can get ten times as many addicts. You make more off of street kids overall because there's more of them. Plus, if you tried to take a princess, you'd have cops all over your ass in no time. Everyone assumes the street kid junkies just got themselves killed by overdose and no one really looks." She shrugged, going back to sipping her cup of sake. She hadn't even finished one while Atahiko and James were on their eighth each.

"Some of them are still pretty hot though. Check it out." Atahiko threw a stack of photographs on the table. Sayaka noticed one in particular of a brown-haired girl on top; it was Kurana-san's daughter, the one who had been missing for a year. _Wait, they didn't get her? Where did she go then?_ "These are the ones I've been tailing for the last little while."

"You follow your victims? You're such a fucking stalker, man!" James joked.

"Well duh! You have to make sure they're solidly junkies and not just dumb bitches who went a bit too crazy one night. The dumb bitches still get police attention. The long-standing junkies don't. Wait at least three months in the hard stuff before you make a move."

"You guys have this down to an art."

"It's how we do as well as we do." Suki shrugged again, flipping through the photos. "Oh for fuck's sakes Osamu, _give up _on Sapphire. She's gone."

"No way! I am going to get that bitch, fuck her, and then you can do whatever you want with her." He yelled out.

"Sapphire?" Fusao asked.

"What? I name our targets. Easier to remember them that way." Suki said as she flipped the picture around.

Sayaka's world stopped for a moment. That picture…it was a photograph of her she never remembered having had taken. She was laughing in the photo but something looked wrong; her eyes weren't focused at all. She was high in the photo.

_Holy fuck. Holy fucking hell. Holy fuck. I was a target. I was actually a target. _

Surprisingly, though she had gone through almost two years of rehab and presenting over and over again how lucky she was to be alive…this was the first time it was so evident how close she came to something so, so terrible. _Probably worse than death. _

"How long ago did you last see her?" Tsubasa asked.

"Almost two years. She's probably dead. Too bad, because she probably could have gotten a good price too." Suki replied, completely uncaring.

"I don't care. If I see her, I'm going to take her anyways, whether she's high or not. She was so far gone that everyone would probably just assumed she relapsed anyways." Atahiko was physically shaking with an expression of pure hatred.

Sayaka tried hard, as hard as she could in fact to not tremor in fear. The guy was huge and was saying incredibly disturbing things about her. _What the hell did I do? _She noticed Geisha looking at her intensely, as if waiting for a reaction. Sayaka swallowed the lump in her throat and stared back.

"Not if she's dead. You're wasting your time." Suki threw the photo back on the table.

Kyoko picked up the photo, studying it quite intently.

_She knows who I am. She's seen me in the open before. _

Sayaka's heart was pounding, as she stared with eyes that were a bit too wide at the girl on her lap. Kyoko turned to look at her, and back at the photo, and back at her again.

_Is it that obvious it's me? _

Sayaka felt her muscles twitching, ready to push Kyoko off and run for it. She knew what this was; she'd felt it before; her adrenaline was pumping full-force.

It was fight or flight, and she was definitely in flight mode.

"These fuckers are sick, huh? You can leave if you want to. I wouldn't blame you." Kyoko said quietly under her breath, before throwing the picture down on the table. Sayaka felt her entire body relax; she practically deflated.

"Hey Red." Atahiko asked, his words slurring more and more. Kyoko just raised an eyebrow at him in response.

"You know that chick? You were staring at her photo for a long time there."

The adrenaline spiked back up. Her throat was constricting. It was almost hard to breathe. It hurt. She actually hurt. These ups and downs were way too painful.

"Nah, never seen her. Just thought she was cute." Kyoko waved off the question.

"That's not bad treasure…but there's better." James said with a snigger.

"What, like a pirate's treasure?" Kyoko looked at him lazily. Sayaka was trying so hard to focus on their conversation, but she couldn't stop looking at that photo on the table of her that just looked so _wrong. _

"No, but a treasure I bet you'd" he booped Sayaka's nose "have heard of." He grinned. Sayaka's attention snapped back. Her brain was in overdrive. There was too much going on. _What the hell is he talking about? _

"What treasure is that?" Kyoko looked genuinely interested.

"Have you ever heard of the famous White Diamonds of Kazamino?"

"No. I didn't even know we had any mining here." Kyoko said obliviously. James and Atahiko laughed again; James looked like he was about to piss himself.

"Why would Precious know anything about those?" The younger Kurosawa seemed to challenge; he was on edge too.

_White diamonds? Have I heard of that? I have. Where have I heard that?_

"Come here Precious." Suki ordered from across the table.

"Huh?"

"Come here for a sec."

Kyoko got up so Sayaka could obey. That sinking feeling in her stomach was coming back. Something was going wrong; something was going worse than wrong; it was already wrong. She felt like a fly getting too close to a spider's web.

"Come on, it's fine. Just come over here." She beckoned her over impatiently.

Sayaka got up on shaky legs, like a newborn faun. She took slow steps forward; all she wanted to do was run away.

Suki didn't let her. She grabbed her left wrist the moment she got close enough and tugged _hard. _

"I knew it." She laughed. "You know, for a drug lord in training, you really need to get better at identifying junkies. You sure as hell don't want one working for you after all."

She was waving Sayaka's arm in the air, tapping on the discrete, healed, old needle wounds in the crook of her left arm.

"It's too bad I didn't see you before, Precious. You would have been an excellent addition to our line." Suki joked morbidly before laughing with Atihiko.

"Don't say shit like that." Fusao snapped, eyes narrowed. The whole room went quiet.

"Oh hey, have your balls dropped now?" Suki asked casually. Fusao glared and looked away. "Guess not!" She smirked.

"Hey Precious! C'mon, tell us what white diamonds are." James ordered. The whole room was looking at her. She could barely think. She still wanted to run away from here, from _them. _

"It's…it's a type of meth, right? It disappeared from the market a few years ago." She stammered. She remembered. It had been good; really good.

"That's right! Did you ever try it?" James asked.

"Y…yeah. But it disappeared before I could get too…hooked on it."

"That's too bad." Suki taunted.

"Do you know where it went?" He asked again.

"No! It just disappeared." _Why the fuck do they think I know anything? _She was getting paranoid. Really, really paranoid. James laughed.

"Relax, I didn't think you had anything to do with it. If anything, it was this guy" He nodded to Kurosawa "who did."

"Losing that cook was one of the worst days for my business. He died of a heart attack. He was a good man and made the purest product I'd ever seen." Kurosawa said solemnly.

"Rumour has it he had made a lot extra in anticipation to sell it; there's hundreds of extra kilos of it hidden somewhere in the city." James said, as it sharing a whimsical children's fairytale.

"I heard it was in the old industrial district." Tsubasa added.

"Probably is, and _that's _why thirty-five percent of the city's addicts disappear on the streets!" A whole group of them laughed this time, except for the Kurosawas.

"You look so tense, Precious." James said kindly. "Do you want to relax? You've been so nice, and you put on _such _nice shows, I'll give you this."

He threw a little plastic bag at her, filled with clearish-white crystals. _No, no, no, no, no! _

"The last bit of white diamond I have. Go on, try it! We should show the younger Kurosawa how amazing some of his father's former empire's goods were." He said.

Sayaka remembered it being good; _really _good.

She wanted to get out of there. She just wanted to get away from these people.

She broke down and started crying. She'd cried so much recently.

"Cut that shit out!" Kyoko screamed. Sayaka looked up through surprised, tear-filled eyes. She noticed Kyoko wasn't glaring at her, but rather at James and Suki. "Are you trying to get her to quit this job or get addicted again? Come on! This is fucking low, even for you!"

"Makes me more money in the long run." Suki smirked viciously. "Another addict is another addition to my line."

_This is so much. So, so fucking much. _

The bag stared at her from the table. Just like Nakazawa's had before.

She kept crying. She buried her face in her hands. _Why had I ever thought I could actually do anything right? _

"Let's go." Geisha whispered behind her, trying to lead her out of the room. _When did she get there? _

She felt like a zombie as she was gently guided away, Lady, Geisha and Kyoko taking her away. Lady closed the door behind them, so the conversations could no longer be heard. But they were saying so many important things…and that bag's right there too.

"I NEED TO GO BACK!" Sayaka freaked out, trying to jump back into the room past Kyoko who was trying to hold her back.

* * *

Kyoko's head fucking hurt. Rin managed to land a pretty good punch to her temple that might have knocked her out if she wasn't a magical girl.

"Dammit Rin, pull yourself together!" Kyoko held her by the waist, but her torso was over her shoulder and she was hard to hold; she was wriggling around too much.

"I need to-" She was cut off when she flipped over Kyoko's shoulder.

Kyoko lost her grip on her partner.

Her stage partner fell to the ground, landing hard on her head.

She stopped wriggling around after that.

"What is…oh my god, what happened?!" Mangohead said as she came down the hall. Tomi was close behind her with wide frightened eyes. He'd really been pulled through the ringer the last few weeks.

"Is that Precious? Jesus Christ, why isn't she moving? What did they do?" Tomi immediately began. Kyoko had an idea of what he was afraid of; it was something that had never happened at this club, and she would be damned if it ever did.

"It wasn't her fault." Geisha cut in.

Everyone looked at Geisha with some surprise.

"It wasn't her fault. They found out she was a former addict and tried to tempt her with some. Anyone, no matter what they prior usage history was would have difficulty with that."

"How the fuck did I never notice she was a former druggie?" Tomi looked at the ground. He was specifically looking at her left arm.

"From what I have seen, she has never had any problems with recent drug abuse. It is just if you put it in front of her, which _no _client should be allowed to do. Any self-respecting workplace that cared for its workers should have strict policies in place, considering the kinds of clients we have. She could easily sue you and win for this." Geisha said matter-of-factly.

Kyoko was stunned. _Did the client stealing bitch just defend Rin? _

"Kyoko…has Rin ever had any problems like this before?"

"No. No, she was always fine. She's a good stage partner. It would be really unfortunate to let her go if we don't have to." The tips were good, after all. "As long as those pricks know they can't pull shit like that again, it should be fine."

Tomi looked at her apprehensively. "Had she made any real connections with clients here?"

"Kurosawa's son really likes her." Kyoko said honestly. Tomi winced.

"Okay. Okay we'll keep her if she wants to stay." He looked down at Rin, who still hadn't moved at all. "Is she alive?"

Geisha was on the ground checking vitals and feeling the back of her neck.

"She doesn't seem to have any spinal injuries. She's breathing normally. She likely has a concussion. If you would like, I can dress her and take her to a proper hospital discretely."

"Great, thank you Geisha. Take her out now. I don't want the other workers to see her and freak out."

Geisha nodded and with a surprising amount of strength lifted Rin and carried her off. Kyoko felt like she should be the one doing it, but she was pretty sure there were more important matters to take care of.

"Excuse me ladies." Tomi said as he entered Room B without knocking. That was strange for him.

"Another addition to your line is another lost customer for me. You should be giving me a portion of your profits. After all, without me, you'd have nothing." Kurosawa challenged.

"Well, before we were making fun little jokes. Now you're taking it a bit too far, Kurosawa-san. This is no longer funny." Tsubasa said with a strained smile.

"And I was never joking with you."

"Gentlemen. And lady." Tomi said with a surprising amount of authority in his voice.

The occupants of the room looked at him unhappily. Those that were sober were in a bad mood from the most recent events in the room. Those that were drunk were in a bad mood because everything was being a major buzzkill.

"What do you want, Tomi?" Kurosawa asked impatiently.

"One of my employees was just injured because some of you thought it would be hilarious to tempt a former addict with drugs." He pointed at the table, giving Megumi a stink eye. Megumi raised his hands indignantly, as if to say 'it wasn't even me!'.

"One of my firmest policies at this institution is that the safety of my employees comes first. You disregarded that policy. I would like for all of you to leave immediately and not return." He looked at Kurosawa who was raising an eyebrow at him. "Until next week." He finished lamely.

_At least he tried…_ Kyoko thought while shaking her head.

She usually liked the nights when she and Rin put on shows. Tonight fucking sucked.

_I hope she comes back. _She thought selfishly. But if that girl knew what was good for her, she would turn away and never look back at this hellhole.

* * *

Sayaka's head fucking hurt. She opened her eyes, but had to squint; the light was way, way too bright.

"How are you feeling, Miki?" Ryo asked.

_Am I hallucinating right now? _

"Miki? Are you alright?"

She blinked a few more times for her vision to come into focus. Surely enough, Ryo was sitting beside her bed in a hospital room.

"Where am I?" She asked.

"You're in a hospital. From what I understand, you fell on your head after an incident." He sighed, disappointed. "You've been unconscious for fourteen hours."

She looked at the time. It was 2:00 pm. She should have been getting ready to go to Hitomi's in a bit.

"Am I alright?"

"You luckily only have a minor concussion. You'll be fine. Just take Tylenol."

A feeling of dread overwhelmed her.

"Did I blow my cover?"

"Thankfully, no."

She let out a sigh of relief.

"And frankly, surprisingly no. You're damn lucky Miki."

She didn't really feel it.

"So what now?" She asked timidly. "When is my family getting here?" Her parents were probably waiting to chew her out. This is _exactly _what they thought would happen. They had been happy when she slipped up so badly at Hitomi's because they thought it would convince her to take a step back.

Her parents trusted her judgment _way _too much.

"They're not getting here because they weren't informed of this. For police matters, I'm your emergency contact."

"What?"

"I changed it after the incident where you parents called us. I figured it would be better for the assignment if they didn't hear about little blips like this. These happen, but if your cover isn't blown and you can still get back up, you should get back in there."

"Uh…"

"Tell me everything that happened last night Miki. Just like we would at a review meeting. I want to hear everything. I'll determine if the working environment is impossible for you to go into. You can determine if you feel up to it. Alright?"

"Uh, okay." She still felt groggy.

"And I want you to be honest with me about what actually happened that led to the accident."

Sayaka swallowed nervously, and explained everything from the photograph to Atihiko's hatred to the white diamonds and how her cover was blown. She didn't mention anything about her show with Kyoko.

"So you're telling me you're a target? From back when you were seventeen?"

"Yeah. I got freaked out. I know I shouldn't have. I'm really sor-"

"This is fantastic!" He grinned at her. "Don't you know what this means?"

"Um, no?" Her head still felt pretty foggy.

"If you were to go to the Old Industrial District undercover as…well, yourself, you could get a direct in! We could catch them while they try to take you! You could have wires and proper surveillance and everything! This is the ideal undercover situation!"

_How the fuck is sending me into an addict's paradise an ideal situation?! _

Her face evidently showed her thoughts on it.

"Miki, you can't pass this up. Especially when Miyamoto is directly involved in the kidnapping, we would be able to get her. _You _would be able to get her. Think of how many young women's lives you'd save if you stopped them!"

"I…I…"

"Think it over Miki. I think, no I _know _you can do this. Just believe in yourself like I do."

"Won't the accident report get me kicked off the assignment right away?" _Won't the accident report get me kicked off the force? _She thought glumly.

"Not if the accident report says you fell on your head doing a pole move. I'm the one preparing it." He winked at her.

"That cannot be in accordance with procedures."

"Of course it's not in accordance with procedures." He laughed. "Playing by the book never gets us anywhere, because these guys don't. In order to get them, we need to act like them. And right now, you're giving us the holy grail of opportunities to do that. Think it over. You could do some absolutely amazing things here, Miki."

She could also do some absolutely amazing fuck ups too. And after the last few weeks she's had, she felt like she's leaning more towards 'fucking up' than anything else.

She swallowed her nerves. She knew what the smart thing to dowould be.

But the smart thing isn't the right thing; and it's about time she tried to do it.

* * *

**AN: **Help! I am in desperate need of a beta! Would anyone be willing to help me out? In return, I will give you internet gratitude and major spoilers for this story. The only potentially picky preference I have is that it would be nice if you have read Oriko Magica, just so you know Yuma's character. Even then, I can live happily if you have not. Please send me a PM if you'd be interested in being (and/or have the time to be) a huge helping hand.

And yet again, I didn't get to where I meant to be at the end of chapter three…and this is 65 pages long (lol, fuck). At least I'm positive that I'll be able to get to the end of the original chapter three next chapter! I don't think I'll have this problem again with future planned chapters though.

A few of you brought up really good points about long chapters being dangerous (in terms of actually finishing things), and I completely agree with you. I'm trying my best to get one chapter out per month to make sure I finish, but it's a bit tricky when this is getting so long. That's the other reason I need a beta! Please help me organize this story.

As always, your reviews and constructive criticism are always very much appreciated! Faves and follows make me incredibly happy too. Thank you for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**WARNING: This chapter contains explicit pedophilia which could be disturbing to some readers. If this is a trigger for you, please skip the third section of text. I will include an additional warning when you come up to that scene. You will not miss any major plot points or foreshadow that you cannot find elsewhere if you do not read that scene; the story will just seem a bit choppy there.**

**Chapter Five **

Sayaka was very familiar with the path to self-destruction. She'd been on it before, though she hadn't realized it at first. Now, the second time around, she could see all of the warning signs.

The internal debates were starting, nagging her, and doubting her. On the one hand, it seemed like a good idea and would make people like her, or in this case be proud of her. On the other hand, she was playing with fire.

She wasn't even going to bother talking to her parents or counselling circle about this. She already knew what they would say.

She definitely wasn't even going to bother talking to the force psychologist. She'd heard rumours that various superiors would bribe her to give false positive recommendations so they could keep their top guys in the field instead of behind a desk.

She wouldn't put something like that past Ryo.

She sighed, curling up under the blue and white duvet on her bed.

She really regretted dumping that vodka.

She unfurled her body so she could roll on her back and look at the ceiling.

She sighed in agitation again.

She curled up under the duvet and repeated her personal ritual of mental masochism as she had done for the past four hours.

She heard her cellphone ring, for the fifth time that hour and ignored it. It was Wednesday and she was supposed to have called her parents and confirmed dinner for tomorrow an hour and a half ago. She was going to skip it. This was going to be the first time she had ever skipped it.

She supposed her text of "I have a shift tomorrow", even though she specifically asked for Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evenings off at the start wouldn't bode well with her parents who could not comprehend the meaning of the words "adult job" or "privacy" or "duty of confidentiality".

_I'm being too rough on them. _

She groaned and unfurled so she could stare at the ceiling. She was obsessing over things, and she felt like she was trying to impress all the wrong people.

Just like old times.

_Sayaka entered the apartment as quietly as possible, glancing around furtively. She didn't see or hear any sign of her parents. She held the shopping bag from the pharmacy behind her back as discretely as possible, which realistically wasn't discretely at all. _

_She had condoms, a mickey of vodka, and a gram of weed in there. _

_Her original train of thought had been that by getting all three at once, she was just getting it over with, like ripping off a band aid. Now that she was actually doing it, she realized that getting busted would mean __really_ _getting busted. _

_She assumed her parents would be pretty pissed to find their fourteen year old daughter trying any of those things, let alone all three at once._

_She practically sprinted to her bedroom and threw the bag under the bed, exhaling in relief._

_Where were her parents, anyways? _

_She wandered around the apartment and didn't see them. She noticed the answering machine's light flashing. _

"_Hi Miko. I'm going to have to work late at the office tonight. I'll probably be home at around nine. I'll just get some take-out here. I love you." The machine beeped. _

_Sayaka walked into the kitchen and noticed a note on the table. _

"_Hi Kenji. The meeting at the bank is going longer than I thought it would and the events committee at the club called an emergency meeting for the auction night. I'll probably be home at around nine. Could you make something for you and Sayaka? I love you!" _

_She rolled her eyes. Figures. She made some ramen noodles that she had bought a few days ago. She didn't really know how to cook with the fancy ingredients her mother bought, and she was getting pretty used to making her own food at this point; might as well get stuff that she liked and knew how to prepare. _

_It also gave her a great excuse to take cash from her parents' wallets and have it not look suspicious... it was okay because most of it was going to go towards buying food anyways and they were __way__ behind on paying her allowance. They still owed her something like 10,000 yen after all the cash she took for personal purposes. She watched a youtube video about how to keep books like her father, so she had a little journal hidden under her mattress to keep track. _

_She took advantage of her freedom to throw the dubious contraband on her bed, turn up her stereo to full volume to play Norwegian death metal that would make her parents (and maybe Hitomi and Kyousuke and maybe the neighbours; who knows?) cringe, and get ready for her first party with the cool – by which she meant senior – crowd. According to Nakazawa, there were even going to be university students there. _

_She took off her school uniform, which was vaguely reminiscent of her old Mitakihara one; this one was blue, white and grey instead of red, cream, and black. She liked her first one more. This one made her look scarily monochromatic. _

_She hung it neatly in her closet and pulled out a black garbage bag that was hidden in the corner. She pulled out clothes her parents may have considered 'too punk' or 'too revealing' and makeup they would have called 'too grown up'. _

_She was going to be out of the house before they came in anyways. _

_After a quick shower, she threw on some clothes (which actually meant that she spent thirty minutes trying on almost every different outfit and accessory combination that she could, on top of spending the entire shower thinking about what to wear) and set to working on her hair. She wanted to have a casual, 'rolled out of bed looking like this because I don't care what you think about me' look. _

_It took her an hour of playing with her straightener, hair products, and hair spray to get the look she wanted right. _

_She made her eyes and lips as black as possible. She looked at a new pimple that formed on her forehead today; the second one this week! She had heard of some people using some sort of makeup on their skin to make it look more radiant and cover pimples, but she wasn't sure what it was called. She knew mascara, eye shadow, and lipstick. Most people didn't wear the skin stuff, right? _

_She thought she remembered Madoka mentioning her Mom wearing skin stuff. _

_Sayaka sighed. Maybe it was only popular girls who wore skin stuff, which covered their acne and made them more popular. _

_She brushed her bangs in front of her forehead to hide it. If you can't make it, fake it until you do; that's what Madoka said her Mom said, and her Mom was super cool. _

'_Am I trying too hard?' Sayaka thought to herself. She shook her head of the notion. She was going to have to try pretty hard to not come off as a total dweeb. _

_After Madoka died and Hitomi became "unwell" as her parents called it, Sayaka was on her own at school. A lot. And there seemed to be some kind of unspoken rule amongst the 'Kazamino Originals' to not speak to the 'Mitakihara Originals'. It didn't help that Sayaka hadn't really had any real friends other than Hitomi and Madoka before either. They had been all she needed, so she was so used to just being herself, which as she learned meant being a total dweeb. _

_It also didn't help that there were only six Mitakihara Originals left from her former class; there had been almost thirty before. Most of them died, but a few had just moved to other cities. Most of the ones who came to Kazamino avoided her because she was a dweeb and they wanted to be cooler in front of the Kazamino Originals. _

_Nakazawa talked to her. He was one of the few who seemed to get along with all of the Mitakihara Originals. The Kazamino kids didn't talk to him. _

_Kyousuke managed to do well for himself; no surprise. He simply hadn't been at the school when the disaster happened, so he didn't think he saw any monsters, and no one thought he was crazy. He was actually quite popular; he had received two love letters within a month of arriving at Kazamino Middle School. _

_Hitomi had confessed long before those other girls though. She told him almost immediately after the accident that she 'cared deeply for him', as she put it. Sayaka asked later why she confessed. _

"_I don't want to die with any regrets. And I don't think I want to live much longer." _

_Sayaka had no idea what she had been supposed to say to that. It was hard to be angry about her confessing to the guy she liked when she had other things to worry about; Hitomi's mental wellbeing being one of them. _

_So she pretty much had two friends at school regularly, and one of them was too busy to talk to her. So she basically had one friend at school regularly…who she had done some inappropriate things with last weekend when they got drunk. She had felt absolutely awful about it after too, because she knew she was supposed to save things like that for someone special and she wasn't sure if she felt like she wanted Nakazawa as her boyfriend or anything like that. But she didn't want to say anything that would make it weird and make her lose her only friend. _

_So she had one friend she did sexual things with to keep as a friend at school regularly. _

_Sayaka sighed, staring in the mirror and reflecting on her loneliness. She really had to stop thinking so much. _

_She prayed to whatever god was out there that she wouldn't drunk-cry tonight; her eyes were completely covered in black makeup, she would look terrible, and she would completely blow her perfect chance to make some more friends. _

_Her phone buzzed. _

'_We're here. Are you ready?' Nakazawa's text read. She didn't even bother replying before she shoved the weed, alcohol, and a condom into a black purse that her Mom thought looked cool. She had helped Sayaka pick it out. _

'_Oh god I am way too lame for this party.' Sayaka thought with dread. _

"_Hey Lil' Blue. You look pretty hard core." Nakazawa's older cousin complimented with a smirk as she got in the car. He was driving them to the party. _

"_It's too much, isn't it?" She asked meekly. _

"_Don't listen to him, he's an asshole. You look awesome! Way older than fourteen." His girlfriend said in a way that reminded Sayaka of the way Madoka would tell Tatsuya he was doing a good job at something. She sunk into her seat like she wanted to disappear. _

_Nakazawa's cousin and girlfriend were in the front seat. Nakazawa's cousin's friend who she had met a handful of times, Nakazawa, and she were in the back, sitting in that order. They were quite cramped back there, because the friend was twice the size of Nakazawa; he had been body-building for strong-men competitions years and it showed. _

"_If you weren't a little kid, I'd fuck you so hard you couldn't walk tomorrow." Nakazawa's cousin's friend said nonchalantly. _

_Sayaka eyes widened and she blushed harder than she'd ever blushed before. She didn't notice when she clenched her legs together in response. _

"_Fuck man, you can't say shit like that to a fourteen year old! Sorry Sayaka, he was doing some shrooms earlier. Knowing this fucktard, he'll be passed out in an hour. Your purity's safe!" Nakazawa's cousin assured. "Well, from him anyways. Not sure about my cousin." _

_Sayaka and Nakazawa looked at each other uncomfortably and looked away. She felt very aware of the condom she had in her bag. She tried to ignore the annoying thoughts in the back of her mind that asked her if she really knew what she was doing. _

_The party itself was like a scene out of a movie her parents wouldn't have wanted her to watch. The bass of some techno song was so loud she could almost feel her chest throb in tune with it. She couldn't even hear the song's melody. _

_The room was hazy as scents of cigarette and marijuana mingled in the air. She heard someone nearby drop a glass bottle, but there were so many people grinding together in such close proximity that she couldn't even see it. Her shoes were sticking to some parts of the hardwood floors though. _

"_Come on!" Nakazawa yelled into her ear. He pulled her away from the crowd, following his cousin and his friends upstairs. They went out onto a large balcony that overlooked the extravagant backyard, which included a huge swimming pool whose lights changed colours. They were at some rich kid's house, and she had no idea whose. _

"_Did you bring anything with you, or do you need to bum some off of us?" The girlfriend asked. Sayaka nodded and pulled the mickey and bag of weed out of her bag. The cousin whistled, impressed. _

"_Not bad kid. More than this fucker brought." He grinned, pointing to Nakazawa. _

"_It's fine. I'll share with him. He's the one who got me the contact anyways." Sayaka tried to play it cool. _

"_Well, technically I'm the one who got you the contact but whatever. You kids have fun. We're doing other stuff. Do you have papers for the weed?" _

"_Uh…" 'Fuck! I knew I forgot something! I look like such a tool.'_

"_Here. Apparently it tastes like cotton candy. Little girls like things like that, right?" The friend said, sitting next to her and throwing a burly arm over her shoulders. She smiled, trying to hide her discomfort. This time she noticed her legs trying to clench together. _

"_Heh heh, yeah thanks. I've got more than enough so I can share with everyone." She said with a friendly smile. _

"_Aww, you're so sweet!" He said with a grin, pulling her closer to him in a sort of one-armed hug. She didn't think anyone else noticed, but she sure did when he gently bit down on the top of her ear and licked it. It made her feel funny down there, like when she and Nakazawa made out. She wasn't sure if she liked it. _

_She put what was probably way too much weed on a paper and rolled it. It looked like little bits of green were poking out in places it shouldn't. She hoped that they would disappear by the time she finished rolling it. _

_It was a slightly misshapen joint, but no one said anything about it. She brought the outer edge to her mouth to lick it and seal it. _

"_You're going way too fast there. If you take your time a bit more, you make sure all of the weed is in the middle before you finish rolling." The girlfriend said helpfully. Sayaka felt her cheeks get a bit warm again, but she nodded and hoped no one would notice. _

"_You're trying to lick it way too fast too. Slow down." The friend said. She looked up at him as she slowed down, eyes asking for approval. 'Am I doing it right now?' His eyes seemed focused on her tongue and he smiled with a look she could only describe as 'predatory'. _

"_Stop creeping on the fourteen year old!" The girlfriend smacked him. He just laughed her off. _

"_Seriously, he's fucking with you. You did great for your first time!" The cousin congratulated her. She smiled bashfully. _

_She rolled the second, third, and fourth joints better. After about an hour. She could feel her heart beating, the blood creating a tingling sensation as it was pumped out. It was electric but soothing. She no longer coughed when she inhaled or held the smoke in her lungs. _

_Nakazawa's body wasn't the most comfortable leaning rest ever, but it was nice. _

_The friend's hand that had at some point slid behind her against her butt felt warm. _

_Everything felt so nice. She felt accepted. _

_She almost felt happy. _

"_Have you ever tried this?" The friend asked. Sayaka opened her eyes and looked over to him lazily. She really didn't want to move. He was holding an inconspicuous looking white pill. _

"_If that's Tylenol, yeah." He grinned. _

"_This isn't Tylenol. It's way better. Have you heard of ecstasy?" _

_She had. And based on the name, it sounded awesome. _

_But based on what she'd heard, it was harder than anything she had ever done before. _

"_Yeah, I have." She closed her eyes again and snuggled deeper against Nakazawa. _

"_It's really good, you know." _

"_So I've heard." She replied slowly. Conversation took effort that she didn't feel like taking. She was enjoying this moment. _

"_You should try it." He prompted, trying to hand her the pill. _

_Sayaka opened her eyes again, and saw that her two guardians, the cousin and the girlfriend had left at some point. She hadn't even noticed. _

_Nakazawa had fallen asleep. _

"_I like this. Just being like this. I don't need anything else. Thanks though." She smiled genuinely. _

"_You're gonna pussy out? Too bad. I thought you were more badass than that." The comment irked her. _

"_Can't pussy out of something I never agreed to do." She rationalized. _

"_Fine, I'll give you that. But you're still being a pussy. Just because you have one doesn't mean you should be one. It's awesome. It makes sex amazing. Have you lost your v-card yet?" _

"_No." She replied truthfully. She'd attempted to give Nakazawa a blowjob last weekend, but she was still a virgin, right? _

"_So you've never touched a hard dick before?" _

"_Never said that. Just haven't lost my virginity yet. I'm waiting for someone special." _

"_I'm not special? You hurt my feelings. My Mom thinks I'm special." _

"_You are special, but not the kind of special I'm looking for." She teased. _

_They started to hear some yelling from the backyard. It didn't sound good. _

_Someone she'd never met rushed through the patio door a minute later. _

"_Hey man, there's a fight down there that's starting to get ugly. Can you help break it up? You're the biggest guy here." _

"_I'm kind of busy right now." He said, clearly annoyed. _

"_Come on buddy, please! This looks like it's going to be the kind of fight that'll get cops here." _

"_Fine, fine; I'm coming. Hey Sayaka, hold on to this and think about it, kay? I'll be back in a few." He pecked her on the lips, which slightly surprised her. She probably would have reacted more strongly if she wasn't high out of her mind. She looked at the pill in her hands. _

"_Dude, how old is she?" She could vaguely hear the stranger ask as they walked away. _

"_Old enough man, fuck off. It's not statutory rape or anything, I looked it up." _

"_If you had to look that up, she's too young for you man." _

"_Again: fuck off." _

_Their voices disappeared with them to go deal with the fight that was getting ugly. Why would people fight on a night like this? The stars are out, the moon is shining, and it's the perfect temperature to cuddle up with friends. Why ruin something as nice as that? _

"_Are you okay?" Nakazawa asked timidly. _

"_You're awake?" _

"_Kinda. I didn't want to leave you alone with him, and I thought he'd make me go if I were awake. I thought this way I could make sure he didn't try anything really bad, you know?" _

"_What would you have done if he did? He's like twice your size." _

"_Yeah I know. I hadn't thought that part out." He smiled. The twinkle in his eyes reminded her of Kyousuke. "Thanks for coming with me tonight. I was nervous, but having you hear makes it way better." _

"_Yeah, same. Your cousin and his girlfriend are really nice. Do you think they'll invite us to things like this again?" _

"_Who knows? I think if our parents found out he'd brought us, they'd freak at him and me. He's been bringing me to these things as a favour. Help me zen out a bit, you know?" _

"_Yeah, I know." Nakazawa wrapped his arms around her, and they sat side by side, holding each other. _

_They stayed quiet, looking at the sky for a few moments, which could have been seconds or minutes or hours. Sayaka had no idea. She was content though. She felt safe. She felt warm. _

_She didn't feel lonely. _

"_I've been thinking about last Saturday a lot. Seriously, I can't get it out of my head. Sitting still in class when you're right next to me has sucked. Sometimes, I'm grateful the teacher likes to pick on the Kazamino originals because I get…well I get kind of hard when I think about it." The pill in her right hand felt heavy. _

"_Do you want to try this?" She asked nervously. _

"_I'm sorry! I hadn't meant that! I'm just talking…I should stop. I'm sorry." _

"_No, no, don't be! It's fine! I'm just…curious I guess. Do you really think it's as good as he said it would be?" _

"_You know he was trying to get you to take it so he could do you, right?" _

"_Well duh, I'm not that stupid." She looked away. 'Ugh, why did I say anything? I'm so stupid!' _

"_I have heard that it's really good though. My cousin and his girlfriend use it a lot." _

"_Really?" _

"_Yeah." _

_She opened the palm of her hand, which had gotten a bit sweaty. The pill seemed to stare at them, beckoning them. _

"_I thought drinking and smoking weed would be really scary, and they weren't. But this seems like it's the next level, you know?" He continued nervously. She couldn't even begin to imagine what her parents reaction would be if they caught her with something like this. _

"_But drinking and weed haven't been that bad. I don't feel, you know, like addicted or anything. Do you?" He continued._

"_No, you're right." She looked at the pill again. She was getting more and more curious._

"_We only have one though." He said. _

"_What if we each took half? Is that what your cousin does?" _

"_No. He and his girlfriend each take one. So maybe if we only do half, it won't be too much?" _

"_Yeah, so then it won't feel really, really good and we won't have to worry about getting hooked or anything right? We aren't alcoholics, so why should this be all that different?" She sat up, feeling more awake. _

"_Yeah, exactly!" He seemed more eager too. _

_They grinned at each other, excited. She had never done anything like this before. _

_She felt kind of cool. _

"_How do we split it?" She asked. _

"_I don't know. Maybe if you bite it in the middle?" It sounded like a good idea, and surely enough it worked perfectly. _

_It had a sort of chalky, bitter taste while it sat on her tongue. She could feel it start to dissolve. She didn't want to swallow before he did though. _

"_Did you swallow yet?" _

_She shook her head. "Waiting for you. Hurry up, this tastes bad." _

"_Okay. One, two, three!" He popped the pill in his mouth and swallowed while she just swallowed. She felt something bubbling in her stomach; she wasn't sure if it was the pill, anxiety, guilt, excitement, or some kind of combination of everything. _

"_Do you feel anything?" She asked. _

"_No, I think it takes time. Want to go back inside? I'm kind of scared my cousin's friend is going to come back soon and be pissed when he finds out I took half." _

_Now that Sayaka thought about it, she would be scared too if he found out she took half. _

"_Yeah, let's go." _

_The found a bathroom down one of the halls in the house. It seemed like this one house was bigger than Sayaka's entire apartment building. The bathroom was quite small and cramped. It only had a small sink, toilet, and standing shower. It was difficult for two people to fit comfortably. _

_Luckily, they didn't mind sharing space. _

_While just last week their kisses had been soft, gentle, and hesitant, they were already heated and passionate in less than a minute this time. Nakazawa was much braver with his hands this time, roughly grabbing her hair and thighs. _

_She became incredibly aware of where he was touching her. She could feel energy from his hands shooting through her nerves, piercing her lower core in the most delicious of ways. She was so aware of how his body seemed to fit hers perfectly, how his tongue danced so well with hers. _

_They smelled like marijuana and it smelled earthy and good. _

_His tongue and lips against her neck, the way he sucked and nipped felt electric. Even as he moved downwards, she could feel tingling from where he had been. It wouldn't go away, either. She just felt hot everywhere he was, and it felt like it was all over her. _

_His hard dick through his jeans rubbing against her belly was so, so exciting. _

"_Please, please, please let me. Please." _

"_Let you what?" _

"_Please let me go inside of you." He breathed frantically. _

_She nodded. Her body wanted it. _

_She wanted it._

"_I have…in my bag." _

"_Huh?" He asked, pulling away from her to pull down his pants. She looked away, felt silly for looking away, looked back at him, then felt like a pervert for doing so. _

"_A condom. I have a condom in my bag." _

_He grinned at her sheepishly. _

"_I have one in my pocket. I wasn't sure if we would go all the way tonight, but I wanted to be ready if we did. Can you, or should I?" He looked at her skirt hesitantly. _

"_Yeah, yeah, I've got it." _

_She noticed the way he watched her with such attentive eyes as she slid her skirt and underwear down. She took the stockings off too. She wasn't sure why, but she felt like she should. She took her shirt and bra off too, a bit more self-conscious. She was never sure why she seemed to have a bit more belly fat than other girls did; she wasn't chubby, but she didn't have toned, smooth abs either. _

"_You're so beautiful." He told her sincerely and breathlessly. The slightest inhibition she had before was gone. _

_It didn't hurt as much as everyone said it would. She couldn't tell how much of the tickles of energy on her body were from having sex and how much were from the half-pill. _

_The contrast of the heat of the thrusting body in front of her and the cool shower wall behind her, combined with the contrast of her mouth feeling nothing but gasps of air while her lower extremities were full was like nothing she had ever experienced. _

_She opened her eyes to see her reflection watching her, her own body moving up and down with her. _

_Her skin was so much paler and smoother than Nakazawa's. _

_Her skin was so pale and smooth. _

_Underneath the cobalt eyelids and long, full lashes shone bright periwinkle eyes. _

_She had such pretty eyes. She liked her eyes. _

_She liked her skin. _

_She liked herself. _

_She felt full. _

_She felt electric._

_She felt loved. _

_She felt beautiful. _

_She couldn't tear her gaze away from the eyes of her reflection. She didn't care if it was conceited; she indulged her vanity, her lust, her hunger, her everything. _

_This was the best she had felt in months. Maybe even years. Maybe ever, for that matter. _

_She could register when Nakazawa's gasps started turning into primal grunts and his movements which were already sporadic turned into those that resembled a spasm; it meant he was having an orgasm, right? That's good. She could make him feel good. She hadn't managed to do it last week. _

_She felt desirable and powerful. _

"_Oh my god." He panted out. "Oh my god that was amazing." _

"_You liked it?" She breathed out, smiling. _

"_Yeah, did you? Did you come too?" _

"_Uh, maybe?" _

"_I think you'd know if you did. I'm sorry." He didn't look too disappointed though. He looked like he was just trying to catch his breath. _

"_Maybe we just need to practice?" She asked. She didn't mind one way or the other. This had still been great. She even told him so to make him feel better. _

"_Yeah, yeah you're right. We'll focus more on you next time." He smiled. "What do you think it would be like if we each took a full pill?" _

_She wasn't sure, but she was damn excited to find out. _

Sayaka could almost look back on the loss of her virginity fondly. She wished they hadn't tried the ecstasy that time though. Maybe she would have been able to tell the difference between the feelings of sex and the feelings of the drugs better, and she wouldn't have been so excited to try them again.

Too late for that now though.

Now, she was going to go right back in.

She pulled a thick, black holofill coat out from under her bed. The brown fur that lined the hood had been stained with blood years ago from god knows what.

She wasn't sure if it was her imagination or not, but when she brought the coat to her face to inhale deeply, it still smelled like weed.

She should have thrown it out as soon as she got clean. This coat was like the ultimate example of a bad reminder.

She put it on and reached inside the pockets. She could feel the holes she had made that would allow small items to fall into the back part of the coat so no one could take them easily. It came in useful more than once, particularly whenever she passed out.

It still felt warm. It was why she had worn it all the time. The crack houses could get pretty cold.

This coat was like her second skin during the worst parts of her addiction.

She sighed and zipped it up, throwing the hood over her head. She was going to need it.

She had been dreading this day for weeks, but it had finally come. She was scheduled to go into the lion's den tomorrow.

* * *

Kyoko was very familiar with the path to self-destruction. She was also incredibly skilled in the art of taking the ones she loved down with her.

"Why don't we just move cities?" Yuma asked from their new, smaller bedroom. The walls looked way too crowded with the amount of her artwork that was posted on it. Kyoko had refused to throw any of it out though.

"They'd find us anyways. And besides: we don't need to be cowards like that. Don't you like your friends at school?"

"They're okay. Why don't we just fight back then? We'd win and you know it." Kyoko sighed.

"You know why. We need them."

"I know why you think you need them. Why do I need them? I don't need to keep the church from being demolished and _neither do you_."

"Would you cut it out with the whole 'abandon the church' thing? You know I'm not gonna do that. We're just gonna fight again." Kyoko said with barely concealed aggravation. She didn't want to bite Yuma's head off, she really didn't; but the brat was making it so hard.

"But this isn't worth it! It's not worth anything! Come on, you're never going to make enough money on time."

"Shut up! At least I can say I tried!"

"And all you're going to do is bring us both down; you know that!" Yuma's voice started to escalate.

"You think I'm bringing you down? Fine. Leave! The door's right there!" Kyoko's escalated more.

"Why are you so _stupid?!_" Yuma screamed and marched out of the apartment, slamming the door behind her.

Kyoko clenched her fists, shaking with rage. _You're right. I know. I fucking know! I fucking know all of it! _

She slammed her fist into the wall, cracking the drywall. She could faintly register a sting of pain. She sat at the kitchen table and buried her head in her arms.

"_Here you are, brother. May God bless and keep you." Kyoko watched her father bow as he graciously handed a homeless man a bowl of hearty soup. It would have looked just like a scene of Jesus serving the lepers out of the Bible, had he not been wearing the hairnet and stained apron the homeless shelter made all volunteers wear._

_Kyoko's stomach grumbled, but she ignored it. She spooned out another brimming bowl of soup to be handed to the next homeless person in line. _

_She bit her tongue to keep from screaming at the man who walked away without acknowledging or thanking her father. _

_None of the homeless patrons ever did. _

_She got angry once. Her father scolded her and made his next sermon about the dangers of pride and expecting to be thanked for your contributions to others. _

_She knew it was wrong to expect it, but she still hated it when no one took the two seconds to thank them. _

_She heard another grumbling stomach next to her. She saw Momo dutifully passing the patrons cutlery, looking down, dejected. _

_Momo hated volunteering every Saturday at the homeless shelter almost as much as Kyoko did, but for an entirely different reason. She hated being so close to food and not being allowed to eat it. They handed it out though. _

_Serve others before yourself, as Jesus would do. _

_From what Kyoko had heard during an argument her parents had had, if they had registered or something, they would have qualified to be patrons themselves. _

_That's another thing Kyoko hated about this place. It made her parents argue. _

"_May God bless and keep you." _

_He was ignored again. _

"_Why are you crying little girl?" An elderly patron asked. Kyoko looked up at the woman confused, and saw that she was looking at Momo. "Do we scare you?" She asked and assumed kindly. _

"_No, you're not scary. It's just that I'm really –" _

"_Momo, go back to the kitchen, I'll be with you in a bit." Her father interjected, keeping a calm and level voice. "Honey, can you come help here?" He called to her mother, who had been taking registrations before. _

"_Yes dear." She came over dutifully with a gentle smile, grabbed the soup from Kyoko and passed it to the elderly woman. "May God bless and keep you, sister." _

_The woman didn't say thank you either. _

_Kyoko felt her fists clench, but said nothing. _

_She filled another bowl to the brim. _

_After another two hours, the shelter was empty and they were helping clean up. Kyoko swept the floor while her parents loaded the dishwashers. _

"_We made too much soup again. Where do our patrons keep going?" The shelter coordinator asked another staff. Both were paid, but Kyoko swore she and her family did more work than they did. _

"_I hear there's a new shelter not too far away. They have neighbourhood restaurants that donate extra food. They also have showers there. It's hard to compete with that." _

"_Damn. We'll just have to reduce how much we make again. We're wasting money on ingredients. Will the soup keep until next week?" _

"_I doubt it. There's not too much left though. Do you just want to bring it back to your family?" _

"_I guess so. The kids don't like the shelter food. But hey; we can always feed it to the dogs. People are willing to pay top dollar for puppies that are raised on raw diets." _

"_Oh yeah, how is your wife's breeding business going? I hear you have a new litter of German Shepherds on the way, eh?"_

_Kyoko took a deep breath and counted to ten. She tried to imagine she was in an apple orchard. She thought of her father's disapproving stare, which he would no doubt make if she yelled at the staff. He would prepare and preach a sermon about the sins of anger, which only their family would hear, but all of them would know it was about her. _

_She used every single strategy her parents had tried to teach her about controlling her anger. _

_It wasn't working. _

_She turned around and left, going to the kitchen. _

"_Daddy, can we have some of the food now?" Momo asked pitifully. _

"_No Momo, that's for the patrons." Her father explained kindly as he had done dozens of times before._

"_They're going to feed it to dogs." Kyoko barked, not unlike a dog that was going to be fed. _

"_Where did you hear that, Kyoko?" Her mother asked from the dishwasher. _

"_The two staff are out there talking about it! They're going to feed it to dogs! Why don't we just take it?" _

"_Kyoko, this food is meant for the patrons of this shelter. If there is leftover now, there will be some for souls seeking shelter tomorrow. They are in greater need than us." _

_His own stomach growled that time, but if he felt any hunger pains he didn't show it. _

"_Did you get angry with the staff again, Kyoko?" He put a gentle hand on her shoulders. _

"_No Dad." She sighed. "I took a deep breath. I counted to ten. I imagined I was in an orchard. When those didn't work and I was still mad, I came here. I'm sorry for being a coward and running away from my problems." _

"_Sorry? What is there to be sorry for? You did excellently Kyoko! You knew and accepted your own limits. I'm proud of you." Kyoko looked up at him with wide eyes, to see his look of genuine pride. She grinned excitedly in turn. She thought she had done badly. Her father's smile softened further as he ruffled her hair. _

"_Now that you feel better, could you finish sweeping the floors? I think we can be done cleaning in fifteen minutes if we do our best." _

"_Okay!" Kyoko saluted. _

_He was right, as usual, and they were off. Kyoko noticed the coordinator loading two big pots of soup into his car. She looked at her father, who had noticed too. He didn't say anything, so neither did she. _

_She counted to ten again. _

_It was a rough evening. They had a box of crackers that someone had given Momo for dinner. Her parents tried to make her and Momo eat most of it; they said they weren't hungry. Kyoko didn't believe them. _

_Kyoko was almost angry when Momo cried about being hungry that night; she had eaten the most! _

_It still wasn't much, but it was the most! _

_She took a deep breath, and told her sister a story about a starving boy who was granted a wish and got a magic porridge pot that could make enough food to feed his whole starving village. Momo liked that story a lot. They both fell asleep, dreaming about porridge and soup pots and dogs. Kyoko woke up angry. _

"_Are you ready to study math Kyoko?" Her mother asked. _

"_I am!" Momo cheered. Kyoko was always jealous of her because she was doing easy things like addition and subtraction; Kyoko was working on multiplying and dividing fractions now. _

"_Yeah." She grumbled. "It makes me angry sometimes because I don't feel like I'm very good at it." She was told she should tell her family when she was feeling angry. Talking about it would make it better. _

"_Is that so? You know you're already on eighth grade math, and you're only in grade six! I think you're pretty good at it." Her mother praised. _

"_Wait, really?" _

"_You're at an eighth grade level in most of your courses Kyoko. You're only at a seventh grade level for English." _

_Kyoko grinned happily, and eagerly opened her math book, which now that she looked at the cover actually was an eighth grade book. _

"_Where am I Mommy?" Momo asked excitedly. _

"_You're at a grade two level, right where you should be." _

"_Aww, I was hoping I was as smart as Kyoko." _

"_It gets easier the higher up you get." Kyoko lied. "So don't worry! I bet you'll catch up to me in no time!" _

"_Okay, let's do math!" Momo cheered. _

_Kyoko smiled at her fondly. Her smile immediately disappeared when she saw her mother's disapproving frown. They both knew she had lied. And lying was wrong. _

_She could guess what her father's next sermon would be about. _

_At lunch time, they were given time to play on the church grounds. They had nothing to eat for lunch. Kyoko suggested a game that wouldn't take too much running, so they wouldn't get hungry too quickly. _

_Her father had gone out trying to recruit more attendees. He probably wouldn't get anymore. But maybe someone would give him some food again? _

_She saw after their lessons finished that no, he had had no luck today. _

"_The good Lord will provide for us soon. I am sure of it." Her mother encouraged. _

"_Why doesn't God give us a big magical porridge pot that can make enough porridge for the whole city?" Momo asked, excitedly gesturing with her hands. Her parents looked at her confused. Kyoko wouldn't tell them she read about that from a book she borrowed from the public library…and hadn't returned yet. It was due a few years ago. _

"_Momo, the Lord's work isn't like that. You are not magically granted gifts. He gives you opportunities to work for them. We must continue to seek out God's opportunities." He reasoned gently. _

"_What does seeking mean?" Momo asked with a drawl that many younger children seemed to have. Kyoko couldn't remember if she used to speak that way too or not. _

"_It's like hide and seek Momo. You go looking for something." Kyoko explained._

"_Should we go out and seek God's opportunities too? I like hiding more, but seeking is fun too!" Momo exclaimed too loudly._

"_I can do that just fine on my own. You two" he tapped Momo and Kyoko's noses "need to focus on your studies." _

"_Aww, I want to go out seeking God's opportunities with you Daddy." _

_So did Kyoko. But she could tell her father wouldn't approve of it. He never seemed to find anything though._

_Could he disapprove of what he didn't know? _

_Kyoko wandered around Kazamino that evening aimlessly, looking for an opportunity. She didn't care about recruiting followers for the church; she didn't think she had enough charisma to do that anyways. But she could find food. _

_She used to steal a few apples from the grocer. She got caught, and the grocer told her father. The sermon on temptation and stealing had been a particularly shameful one._

_Maybe she could get a job? She could try to get a paper route or something; they hired twelve year olds, didn't they? _

_She didn't have to think about that for too long though. Just as she was walking by an alley, she smelled something familiar. _

_Pasta! In the dumpster? Why was it there? It looked plenty good. _

_The dumpster looked gross. The whole alley looked pretty gross, actually. Even the door and stairs next to the dumpster looked gross. But the food didn't!_

_She picked around the pieces that were touching gross garbage, but most of it was in a neat pile. She taste tested it, just to make sure it was good enough for her family. _

_It had a thick, creamy sauce. It was the most filling and delicious thing she had eaten in weeks! It was so good! _

_And she had nearly finished all of it. _

"_Hey, what are you doing?" A masculine voice asked her forcefully. She jumped, which caused the lid of the dumpster she had been holding up to crash on her head, sending her into the pile of trash. _

_Her head hurt and she was humiliated now. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea after all…_

"_Are you al-" The man's voice sounded much kinder now. She looked up at him. He had a kind face and scruffy goatee. He almost reminded her of her father, but he was younger and paler with black hair. _

"_Were you eating the pasta from the dumpster?" He asked, horrified._

"_Uh…well…I…" She wondered how he knew, and realized a noodle was hanging from her mouth. She quickly slurped it up, looked up at him one last time, and sprinted away. _

_She would have stayed away. She wouldn't have ever gone into the same part of town ever again, if she could help it. _

_But when her mother fainted that night, she decided that she needed to get more food, no matter what. _

_This time, she brought a bag with Tupperware containers. They hadn't been used for a few years now, but they didn't look dusty after she rinsed them off. _

_She looked around carefully this time. She didn't see anyone nearby. _

_She opened the lid and found an Italian food galore. _

_Breadsticks, pasta, salad, chicken, and so much of it would be just fine if it was just cleaned off a bit. _

_Kyoko lost track of the time trying to expertly pick out food that was as uncontaminated as possible. _

"_Here." Kyoko jolted at the voice, dropping the heavy lid of the dumpster again. This time, the man caught it before it hit her. _

"_Food in the dumpster belongs in the dumpster. Take this instead. You're not an animal." He handed her a bowl of spaghetti and tomato sauce. It looked delicious. _

"_Are…are you sure?" _

"_I saved an extra bowl just for you." He said kindly. "I have to ask though. What are you doing picking food from dumpsters?" _

_Kyoko felt her face flush with embarrassment. She wanted to lie, but lying was shameful. She was already ashamed enough. She sat down on the stairs next to the man._

"_I was looking for food for my family." She said, looking away from him. She took a seat next to him on the stairs. _

"_Your family doesn't have enough to eat?" She shook her head. He offered her the bowl and she took it, but she didn't eat. _

"_No. No one believes my Dad's teachings so they won't come to his sermons. Dad told me God doesn't just give us things; he gives us opportunities to get what we need. So I'm trying to find opportunities to get us food. And this is food that nobody seems to want, and they don't want to feed it to their dogs either." _

_The main raised an eyebrow at the dogs comment, but didn't ask for clarification._

"_Wait…is your father the one who's been trying to get that cult going?" _

"_It's not cult!" She snarled. "Everything he says makes sense! Cults don't make sense, but my Dad does!" _

"_I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I was just wondering. I'm sure he preaches wonderful things like you say." He said with arms raised in a placating manner. _

"_Do you want to come hear what he has to say?" She asked hopefully. "He's always happy to talk to new people!" _

"_Aha, no, sorry. I'm not one for religion, I'm afraid. I'd be happy to give you some food whenever you need it. We always have some leftover here, and it seems a waste to throw it away." _

"_You just throw it away anyways?" She was still hopeful. She may not be able to recruit a follower, but she could still find a source of food._

"_Well, not all the time. We actually donate a lot of the extra food to a new homeless shelter a few blocks down." _

_Her hope was gone. _

_Her father would never accept food that was supposed to be donated to the homeless. _

_Everyone was starving, but at least her family had a home and large one at that. _

"_Oh. Okay." _

"_What's wrong?" _

"_Dad doesn't let us take food that's donated to the homeless. It's meant for them, not us. We have a home." _

"_Oh." The man said. His face lit up like he had an idea. "Hmm…" He said exaggeratedly. _

"_What?" Kyoko asked, genuinely curious. _

"_What if the food wasn't going to be donated?" _

"_What do you mean? You're going to throw it out?" _

"_No silly. What if we were paying someone who was working for it?" _

_Kyoko's mind went back to the paper route, but this sounded way better. _

"_Really? For real? I can work for you?" She was literally bouncing up and down a bit in excitement. Her first job! Her parents would be so proud of her! _

"_You sure can! I always close up the restaurant alone on Thursdays to Sundays. It's late, but if you come by at around midnight you can help me clean up the kitchen. I can't pay you money because you're a bit too young, but I can pay you in leftover food." He promised enthusiastically. _

_Kyoko was thrilled. _

"_Okay boss!" _

_The man laughed pleasantly. _

"_So, what's my new kitchen girl's name?" _

"_I'm Sakura Kyoko! You can just call me Kyoko. What's your name, boss?" _

"_How about you just call me boss? I like the sound of that." _

"_Okay boss!" She grinned. _

"_Alright Kyoko, here's what we'll do. I still have work, but how about you come by in about…" He looked at his phone. "In about five hours and we'll clean up together. One important rule though, okay?" She nodded, listening attentively. "You can't tell anyone about this. See, I think some people would get mad if someone as young as you were working for me. So if we don't tell anyone, they can't get mad, right?" _

"_I guess…" It made sense to her. "So what do I tell my parents when I bring home food?" _

_Boss pondered it for a few moments. _

"_Tell them there's a drop-in youth centre you're going to, and they always have extra food that they give you. Does that sound like a good story?" _

"_Yeah!" _

"_Great! So come back at midnight, okay?" _

"_Okay! Bye Boss!" _

_She skipped the entire way home. She was ecstatic. She didn't like having to lie, but a white lie to feed her family would be worth it, right? Right. _

_She snuck out that night. Momo was a heavy sleeper and her parents' room was pretty far away from theirs and the front door. _

_It was easy enough. She just mopped the floors of the restaurant, which were already pretty clean and put away a few dishes. They spent most of the time rehearsing her story._

_She got four big doggy bags of food for it. _

"_So what are you going to tell your family when they ask where you got the food?" _

"_There's a drop-in youth centre nearby! It's really fun. We get to play air hockey and videogames. They have free nights on Thursdays to Sundays. They also have some food, and they say they always have extras that they're just going to throw out! I asked if I could have some and they gave me some doggy bags." She shrugged, like it was no big deal. _

"_Perfect. So I'll see you tomorrow Kyoko?" _

"_Yep! I'll see you tomorrow! I look forward to working with you!" She bowed energetically. _

_She told the story expertly, and her parents believed it. Her father in particular looked quite relieved by this. _

"_Can I come too Kyoko? It sounds so cool!" Momo was leaning into her face. She had been crowding her ever since she found out Kyoko had gotten good Italian food. _

"_No Momo, cut it out!" She pushed her away. "You have to be at least eleven years old to go." Lying came effortlessly to her; something that had always concerned her parents._

"_Awww." She looked genuinely sad. Kyoko felt bad, but she figured if Momo knew it was actually a job, she'd hate it. _

"_Well, I think it's great you have a fun place to go to Kyoko. Momo, they have some drop-in play groups in the area. If you'd like, I can take you there after lessons?" Her mother offered politely. _

"_Misaki, you know why we-" He began under his breath._

"_Yes, I know, but really this is for their own benefit." She whispered back. He sighed and conceded. _

_Kyoko didn't understand what they were talking about and she hated it. _

_She decided not to ask though. It would be hypocritical of her to demand to know their secrets while she kept her own. _

_She'd already heard a sermon on hypocrisy. That one had been because of Momo though. _

_They continued on this way for the next few weeks. She mostly told Boss about what she was learning in her lessons. She talked about her family. She talked about her frustrations at the homeless shelter and how people wouldn't give her family the time of day. She talked about how annoying Momo could be. _

_Boss was a great listener and it was fun working with him. She liked coming in to work! And when she was old enough, she could work at the restaurant full-time and would be able to provide for her family. She went out and found an opportunity! Everything was going great. _

_Until Boss said she couldn't work at the restaurant anymore. _

"_I'm really sorry, Kyoko. It's not you, really. The owner of the restaurant found out you've been coming and won't let me have any underage help." She was about to protest that she was just as good and responsible as of-age help. "But I still want to work for me. You do such great work and it would be a shame to lose it, right?" _

_Kyoko was skeptical. _

"_Yeah, but if I can't work at the restaurant, what can I do for you?" _

"_You know, I always work so hard at the restaurant that I never have time to clean my house. I don't live too far away. Would you be able to help me there? I'll keep bringing you good Italian food, don't worry!" _

"_Okay!" She agreed. At least she still had a job, even though it didn't sound as cool as helping out in the kitchen of an upscale restaurant. _

_The house was about a twenty minute walk away, making it twenty minutes further away from her place. She would have to walk almost an hour to get here. _

_But oh well. She could do it. It was for her family, after all. _

_It was a cute little white bungalow. She was confused, because it was actually very clean inside. _

"_Are you sure you need my help, Boss? I don't see anything that needs to be cleaned up." _

"_Oh yeah, I guess you're right. It is pretty nice in here. It's actually a lot messier in the basement. Can you come downstairs with me and we can clean it up together?" _

"_Oh, okay! Sure!" She followed him downstairs. She heard a door lock. _

* * *

**Please skip this section if you do not want to read explicit pedophilia.**

"_Why did you lock the door?" She asked curiously. The church had a basement they locked too, but not usually when they were in it. _

"_Sorry, force of habit. Do you mind if I keep it locked though? I feel better that way. A burglar broke in once, so I figure if it's always locked, I have nothing to worry about." He smiled. _

"_Oh, that's smart. Okay." She smiled and ran down the stairs. _

_The basement did look a lot messier. There were pictures scattered across the floors. _

_Kyoko, trying to be a go-getter, immediately started picking them up. _

_She noticed a lot of pictures of kids in swimsuits at the local pool. _

"_Do you go to the pool a lot?" She asked, trying to start a conversation. _

"_Yeah, I do. I'm a lifestyle photographer. It means I take pictures of people doing everyday things. I think it gets the beauty of normalcy, you know?" _

_Kyoko thought having a normal life would be beautiful. _

"_Yeah. I do. That's a nice thing to take pictures of." She kept picking up pictures and putting them into neat piles for him. _

"_Hey Kyoko. After we're done this, do you want to play some videogames? I have some good ones like Mario Kart! They're classics, but they're classics for a reason." He grinned. _

"_Sure! I've always wanted to play videogames. I might not be very good though; I've never played before." _

"_No?" _

"_Dad thinks they're bad." _

"_Oh that's too bad. Are you sure you want to play them?" Kyoko thought about it for a second. _

"_What he doesn't know can't hurt him, right?" She grinned at him. _

"_Right." He laughed, ruffling her hair affectionately. _

_He set up the videogame, which involved finding the right dusty box and plugging it in. _

"_Don't you play it a lot?" _

"_No, I don't have anyone to play it with. That's why I'm glad you're here." He said with a smile. "I don't have a lot of friends." _

_Kyoko looked down. _

"_Yeah. Me neither." _

"_Why not? You're so nice and helpful." _

"_My Mom says kids might not like me because of my temper. I get angry a lot. And we don't go out much. I think I've embarrassed them too many times now." She felt vulnerable telling Boss this. She didn't want him to fire her, but she felt like she should be honest. Lying is shameful. _

"_I think it must be more because you don't get out much. You've got a great personality. I like you." He said kindly. _

"_I like you too. I'll be your friend Boss!" _

"_Call me Hachiro, ok? We're friends now." _

"_Okay Hachiro." She grinned. _

_It took a few minutes, but he got the game up and running. The bright colours from the TV were the only thing illuminating the dark unfinished room. _

_She took a seat next to him. _

"_Oh, well now you're totally going to lose." _

"_Huh? What makes you say that?" She asked incredulously. She figured she would lose, but that didn't mean she was okay with throwing the game._

"_You see how I'm sitting right in the middle in front of the screen? This means I can see everything more easily from here. You're sitting to the left." _

"_Yeah, but if you're sitting in the middle, how can I sit there too?" _

_Hachiro patted his lap. "You're small enough to sit here." _

"_I think I'm too heavy now. Dad won't let me sit on his lap anymore because I make his legs go numb." Hachiro laughed. _

"_You won't make my legs go numb. Come on." He patted his lap again. "This way, we can both play as good as we can! It makes it more fun that way." _

_Kyoko felt guilty, because she figured she was probably heavier than she looked. But she conceded; he could always tell her to get off later. _

_She sat down and the played a few rounds. She had even beaten him a few times! She liked the little green lizard, Yoshi. He was cool._

_Something kind of strange happened after the third round though. She felt something poking her. _

"_What's that?" She asked, shifting her body weight around trying to get more comfortable. She noticed Hachiro take a quick intake of breath. _

"_Aha, that's the remote. Don't worry about it. It's better to leave it there so it's easier to adjust the volume on the TV." _

"_Oh. Okay." That seemed odd to her, but she said nothing. She moved herself up and closer to him. She was sitting on the remote control now. _

"_Sorry, is it ok if I sit on it? It's more comfortable. I can move or sit beside you instead if that's better." She wasn't as bad at the game as she thought she would be. She could probably do pretty well, even if she didn't have the best view. _

"_This is just fine." He almost growled out. Kyoko had never heard anyone say anything in that way before; she never really had an adult friend before though, so maybe this was just how grown-ups talked. She just smiled and leaned against him. _

_He was breathing really heavily. He finished last in the fourth round. _

"_Are you okay Hachiro? You really sucked." _

"_Ah, yeah. I think I'm just ready for bed. Kyoko, it's getting really late and it might be dangerous for you to walk home alone. Why don't you just sleep over? You can tell your parents tomorrow there was a sleepover at the drop-in centre, and you had so much fun that you just didn't want to leave." _

_She didn't feel very comfortable with that. _

"_I don't know. They told me that if I were ever going to stay out too late, I should come home and let them know." They didn't have a phone. _

"_Wouldn't that just mean you would go home?" _

_Huh. He's right. _

_Her parents were sneakier than she thought. _

_One time wouldn't be so bad, right? And she'd never been to a sleepover before, but she always wanted to go…_

"_Okay! Where do I sleep?" _

"_There's a bed in the room over there. We can both sleep on it. Come on." _

_The bedroom was finished, unlike the rest of the basement. It was a nice little room with pale green walls and a tan carpet. The bed was white with pink and green flower doodles on it. _

_It wasn't her style, but she guessed a more typical little girl would have liked it. _

"_Are you tired, Kyoko?" _

"_Not really, but that's okay! I hold the record in my family for quickest to fall asleep." She grinned. _

"_You don't need to sleep yet, it's okay. I'm tired, but not too tired. You know how I said I like to take pictures?" _

"_Yeah." _

"_Could I take some pictures of you? You're a very pretty little girl. I think you'd be a great model!" _

_No one aside from her parents had ever called her pretty before. It made her happy. _

"_Okay!" _

_He left the room to get a camera. He'd instructed her to take her pants and shirt off, but she could keep her underwear and hoodie on. It seemed odd to her, but she figured it had something to do with art and photography that she couldn't understand yet. _

"_You look perfect, Kyoko. Are you ready?" She nodded eagerly. _

_He took pictures of her in all kinds of weird poses. There was one where she was sitting and had her legs spread while smiling and biting her finger; a few where she was on her hands and knees, looking back at him; he even gave her a strawberry popsicle, but she was only allowed to lick and suck. They did things like that for about half an hour. _

"_You're a great model Kyoko. I wish I had thought of that before making you be a kitchen girl." He said in the same growly voice as before. _

"_It's okay. I liked working in the kitchen." _

"_Want to play a game? I know a really, really fun one." _

"_Is it like Mario Kart?" _

"_No." He chuckled a bit. "No, it's way better. It's called the kissing game, okay?" It sounded a bit icky to Kyoko, but she didn't want to be rude. _

"_How do you play?" _

"_So first, you kiss me somewhere, anywhere. And then I kiss you. Whoever stops kissing first loses. Loser has to pay a penalty. Sounds easy, right?" _

"_I guess. I'd rather play Mario Kart."_

"_Just try this. I bet you'll like it. Do you want to start or should I?" Kyoko shrugged. _

"_I'll go then." Hachiro decided. He kissed her on the forehead, lingering for a few moments longer than Kyoko would have liked. It was like when her mother or father kissed her, but somehow not and she couldn't figure out how. _

_She kissed him quickly on the cheek, like she would do for her parents. He kissed her shoulder. She kissed his hand. He kissed her neck, and this time he stayed there and sucked and licked. _

"_That tickles!" Kyoko giggled, closing the space between her ear and shoulder to get him away. He grinned and kept going, making her squeal. "Stop that!" _

_He finally relented. "Your turn." She wasn't sure where to go, so she settled for kissing his nose. He scrunched up his face in a comical way, making her grin. "And my turn." _

_This time, he kissed her on the lips. She had seen her parents do it sometimes, but never like this. He was sucking her lip into his mouth, like what he had done on her neck. _

_Kyoko wasn't sure why, but something felt very, very wrong about doing this. She felt like she had swallowed a rock; she felt guilty and anxious. _

"_I think I lose the game. Can we go to sleep now?" She averted her eyes. She didn't want to look at him. _

"_You lost, so I get to decide the penalty. Come on, let's try that again." He pulled her to him to kiss her again. She pushed back. _

"_I don't want to! Stop Hachiro! Friends don't make friends do things they don't want to do." She felt so childish saying that. She wanted to leave. She wanted to go home. _

_She looked at the alarm clock and saw that it was already 2:30 am. _

"_Friends also do things for friends. But it's okay. Let's do one last thing and we'll go to sleep, okay? You can do that, right?"_

"_I don't know." She honestly didn't. He was making her do a few things she had never done before. _

"_It's okay." He assured her again. He pulled down his pants. Kyoko's eyes widened and she looked away quickly, blushing. _

_Her parents had never gone into detail before, but she knew how boys and girls were different; boys had penises and girls had vaginas. She got that. But she had never actually seen one before. _

_She never pictured it would like that either. She would have thought she would notice her father's at least sometimes if it was sticking up like that all the time. _

"_Touch it." He ordered her softly. _

_She looked at him, frightened. She didn't want to. She just felt like it was wrong, but she had no idea why it should be. It just didn't feel right to do at all. _

_She shook her head fervently and tried to keep herself from crying. That would be really embarrassing. _

_He sighed. "It's okay. Maybe next time. But watch this, okay? I'll teach you how to make someone feel really good. It's easy." He grabbed it and started rubbing up and down really fast. Kyoko didn't want to watch him. It felt weird. _

_Hachiro stopped and pulled out the camera. "I want to take a picture of you right now. You look so perfect." _

"_I don't want a picture." _

"_It's fine. I won't show anyone else. Just us. Our secret." He took a photo anyways, and went back to rubbing. _

_She didn't like looking at it, but when she looked up she noticed he was staring at her, with his mouth open. He was breathing hard and grunting. _

_She tried looking at the ceiling but he scolded her for that, gently but firmly. _

_She decided to look at his thing because it was better than looking at his face. _

_However, if she had been looking in the general vicinity of his face, she might have noticed his other arm reach other to grab her hand and put in on him…there. He grasped her hand so she was rubbing it with him. _

_She tried to pull her hand back but he was too strong. _

"_I told you I was going to teach you. This is how you learn."_

"_But I don't want to –" _

_Suddenly, something happened and he groaned. She felt her hand get hot and wet. She was terrified that he'd peed on her like Momo used to do before she stopped wetting the bed. _

_It wasn't though, thank goodness. It was something white instead. _

"_Do you want me to give you food for your family for a whole week?" He asked between breaths. _

_She looked at him tepidly, but nodded. _

"_Lick it up and swallow it." He pointed to the white stuff on him. "It's like food. It's good for you. I won't even make you do a penalty, promise." She felt like this was enough of a penalty though. She felt like she'd done plenty of penalties. _

_But it would give her family food for a week._

_She closed her eyes and lowered her head, ready to just get it over with. _

"_Hang on a second." He grabbed the camera. "Now go." _

_Something felt humiliating about this. She did it anyways and heard the beep of the camera. _

_It tasted really bitter. It was gross. She had to try twice to swallow it and fight the urge to spit it out. But she did it. _

_The taste was still on her tongue, like she hadn't managed to swallow everything. She scraped her tongue against her teeth, trying to get the taste off. _

_Hachiro seemed to think she was licking her lips and he loved it. He took another picture. _

"_You're such a good girl Kyoko." _

"_I want to go home." She said firmly, getting up and ready to try finding her clothes. She felt naked and bare now, even though she still had her hoodie and underwear on. He pulled her to her chest with just enough force to let her know that no, she could not go home yet. _

"_You can leave in the morning. It's dangerous out there now." She knew that she was sleeping with the danger now, but gave up. He fell asleep quickly. She couldn't. He never let her go so she couldn't sneak out. _

_He woke up after about eight hours. His thing was hard again, but he didn't make her do anything. He gave her a backpack and three tote bags full of food that he pulled from the fridge and cupboards; anything he could find, really. _

**Explicit pedophilia scene ends here. **

* * *

"_Come back again next week, and I can make you feel really good too, okay? You did so well yesterday. Do you remember what you're going to say?"_

"_There was a sleepover and I had so much fun, I lost track of the time and didn't want to leave." She said, feeling sick. _

"_Right. But say it with more enthusiasm than that, okay?" She nodded and walked out as fast as she could. He told her not to run. _

_Her parents had been mad when she got home, but quickly forgave her when they saw how much food she had. _

"_I'm really sorry I didn't come home last night Mom and Dad. There was a sleepover and I had so much fun, I lose track of the time and didn't want to leave." She smiled. _

"_Well, next time if you could run home quickly to tell us, we'd be happy to walk back with you and you can stay the night. I'm so glad to hear you're making friends Kyoko." Her Mom smiled. "Now, shall we all sit down to eat? It looks like we have enough that we all deserve to have a big, special breakfast this morning!" _

_Momo cheered. Kyoko felt even sicker. _

_She felt tears prickling at the back of her eyes. Her father seemed to notice. He always did. _

"_Kyoko? Are you alright?" _

"_Yeah, I'm fine!" She was worried she sounded too chipper. "I just ate a lot at the sleepover, so I'm already stuffed. I'm actually really tired because we didn't sleep much. Can I just go have a nap instead?" _

"_Aww, I don't want you to go sis! I want to hear about the sleepover! Can I go to a sleepover?" _

"_No, no, Momo if she's tired let her sleep. Go ahead Kyoko. Sweet dreams." Her father smiled kindly as he always did. _

_She wanted to tell him, but she knew she shouldn't. _

_She slept for twelve hours. When she woke up, she wasn't hungry and her mouth tasted bitter again. _

_She brushed her teeth. Again. And again. It still tasted bitter. _

_Momo had walked in a few times. They didn't have a lock. Momo didn't actually need the bathroom; she had just wanted to play. _

"_Are you finally done yet?" She asked, clearly bored. _

"_No, go away." She gargled out. She spit. It still tasted bitter. She put more toothpaste on her toothbrush so she could brush them again. She made a mental note to scrub her tongue more this time. _

"_Kyoko, you're being weird. You've been brushing your teeth for two whole hours! We won't have any more bubble gum toothpaste left for later. I'm telling Daddy!" _

_Her eyes widened in fear. She knew there was something weird about brushing your teeth for that long._

"_No, Momo don't!" She quickly spit and rinsed her mouth. It still tasted bitter but she ignored it. "I'll play with you, okay? Just don't tell Mom and Dad. You can keep a secret, right?" _

_She hated the way she reminded herself of Hachiro when she talked to Momo. _

_Momo made a big deal of looking like she was contemplating her offer. _

"_Can I pick what we play?" _

"_Sure, sure." Kyoko breathed out, relieved. _

"_For the next week?" She grinned deviously. _

'_Ugh, we're going to be playing house for a whole week?' _

"_Fine. You win." _

"_Yay! Let's play house!" _

_The week passed quickly; quicker than she liked. She pretended to be sick over the entire weekend. Apparently she wasn't as good an actress as she thought, because her parents saw right through it. _

"_Kyoko, why aren't you going back to the drop-in centre? Don't you like it there?" Her mother asked, concern lacing her voice. _

"_Yeah, I just don't feel like going is all." _

"_Are you having problems with some of the kids there? Would it help if we went to talk to them?" _

_Kyoko jolted. _

"_No! No, don't do that, it's fine. I'll just go next weekend." _

"_Kyoko…what's going on?" Her father asked suspiciously. _

'_Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no." _

"_I got kicked out." She lied. Her parents looked ashamed. _

"_Kyoko! How did you do that?" Her mother asked, disappointed. Kyoko felt grateful that this time, she didn't even feel bad. She hadn't actually done that wrong…but lying was wrong. _

"_I got into a fight with another kid. He made me angry." _

"_Are you permanently banned? I'm sure if we go speak with the coordinators, they can understand that we're working on it with you and they'll let you back in." Her father said calmly. She could see right through him though; the food was good. _

_And they were going to catch her: there was no drop-in centre._

"_No, not permanently. I just need to apologize." _

"_Then why not just do it?" _

"_The kid made me really, really mad. And they're wrong." Her father sighed. _

"_Kyoko, remember what I told you about pride?" She cringed. She did. _

_She promised to go back next weekend. _

_However, when Thursday afternoon came by, she didn't have to anymore. Something much worse happened. _

_They were almost running out of food again. Her parents were relieved she was going back, and there was going to be another sleepover that had a lot of food. Kyoko pretended to be excited. They had a scarce Thursday lunch with the whole family. _

_It was interrupted by a knock on the door. _

_Her father immediately stood up, a sense of restrained excitement evident in his step. Maybe they had gotten an interested follower? _

_Kyoko and Momo hid behind a doorframe to observe. Her parents opened the door and enthusiastically welcomed their guests. _

_They were all wearing suits and holding briefcases. _

_Kyoko didn't like them. _

"_Is this the Sakura residence?" A young woman with long, straight black hair and red rimmed glasses asked. She had a voluptuous hourglass figure; her hips were very wide, so her pantsuit looked less harsh than the others' did. She had narrow full lips that smiled pleasantly, but it looked forced._

"_Yes, it is. How can I help you today…" Her father began, but the woman wasn't looking at him anymore. She had noticed the two girls hiding in the doorway._

"_Hi there. Are you Kyoko?" She asked in a friendly manner, her voice a higher pitch than when she had been speaking to her parents. _

"_How do you know my name?" Kyoko asked suspiciously. _

"_It's okay, I…well we" she gestured to the group of people behind her "came to ask you a few questions about someone, if that's alright? My name is Chiyo." _

"_Chiyo! Your name kind of sounds like Kyoko!" Momo chirped. Kyoko raised an eyebrow at her. "Well, kinda!" _

"_Yes, I suppose it kind of does, doesn't it?" She laughed. _

"_Excuse me, but who are you and why are you in our home?" Her mother was defensive now. _

"_We're federal investigators." Chiyo's senior said seriously, showing his badge. "They are with Child and Family Services." She gestured to a man and woman standing to the side. _

"_Federal? Kyoko, what did you do? Were you stealing again? How many times have we told you not to do that?!" Her mother turned to her. Kyoko was terrified and ready to bolt. _

"_No, no! Ma'am, if you could follow my colleagues we will explain what is happening, alright? But we would like to speak with you privately." Chiyo sounded like she was afraid she was losing control of the situation. "Kyoko, you are not in trouble for anything, I promise you that." _

"_Who are you, and why are you here?" Her father asked sternly, though it didn't sound like a question. Chiyo turned around to look at her senior. He nodded. _

"_We're from the Special Victims division. We specialize in sex crimes." _

_Kyoko wasn't sure what sex was. She hadn't even heard of that before. _

_Her parents clearly had though. They both went pale. _

_Her mother went down on one knee and beckoned Kyoko to her. _

"_Kyoko…Kyoko I'm very sorry for yelling at you before. It was very wrong of me. Could you…could you explain why these people are here?" _

_Kyoko shook her head. She honestly couldn't. _

_She had a bad feeling she might have an idea though. _

"_We just want to ask you a few questions. Is that alright, Kyoko?" _

"_What's going on?" Momo finally asked, tired of being left out. _

"_Go into the kitchen Momo, we'll speak to you in a bit." Her father ordered._

"_No, it may be better if we spoke we her as well." Chiyo interjected. "Just to be sure." _

"_Sure of what? What the hell is going on?" Her mother started to cry. "What the fucking hell is going on?" She more said to herself. _

"_Mom, it's okay…" Kyoko tried to console her, awkwardly reaching out her hands to hug her. She was never really good with feelings and she had never heard her mother say bad words before. _

"_It might not even be anything serious, Mrs. Sakura. It could be a false alarm." Chiyo tried to encourage. "Kyoko, do you want to speak privately in another room? Just you and me, or maybe with one of your parents too?" _

_Kyoko shook her head. She did not want to be alone with that woman. She was making her mother cry. _

"_Are you alright with me asking some questions out here then?" She said accommodatingly. Kyoko didn't respond. _

"_Has anyone done anything with you in the past few weeks that may have not felt right? Maybe about two weeks ago?" _

_She was definitely talking about Hachiro. Kyoko knew it. Her body tensed._

"_Two weeks ago…Kyoko that was the sleepover at the drop-in centre, right?" Her father asked, a look of dread coming over his face. "There was a sleepover at the drop-in centre, right?" _

_She paled. She lied to them. She had lied for weeks. And lying was shameful. _

"_You're not in trouble for anything. We won't be upset with you. We just want you to tell us what happened." Chiyo pressed on. _

"_Kyoko brushed her teeth for two hours!" Momo chirped excitedly. _

"_MOMO SHUT UP!" She screamed, horrified and angry. She just knew that there was something wrong about that. _

_She was right. She saw all of the strange people make varying cringing faces. Varying faces of pity. _

_She hated it. _

_She let go of her mother and ran for the back as quickly as she could. _

"_Kyoko, come back!" Her father yelled, chasing her. Kyoko didn't listen; she disobeyed which she knew was wrong but she wanted to get away from there. _

_She had made it to the other side of the cemetery before she tripped over a tree root. She tried to get up, but her father had already pounced on her, holding her in place. _

"_Let me go! Let me go!" She was screaming, trying to get away. _

"_Kyoko, stop this right now!" He yelled. She had never heard him yell before. She shut up. _

"_Kyoko…Kyoko I don't know what happened to you. I'm terrified, and so is your mother, because we think something very bad happened that shouldn't have happened. Please Kyoko…please be brave. You need to tell them what happened. No one will be upset with you. Even if you lied before. I promise we won't be mad with you, just like the lady said. I promise." He hugged her, and she cried. She just hugged him back and cried. She had wanted to do this since she had come home from that house, but couldn't and now she could and it felt good. _

_After a few minutes, they went back inside. She, her parents, Chiyo, and a social worker sat in the kitchen. _

_Chiyo showed her a picture of Hachiro, who she said had been arrested. They found her because they found pictures of her. Her mother cried more. _

_They showed her a stuffed doll, where she had to point out where he touched her, and she had to touch him. _

_She talked about working at the restaurant and then at his house. _

"_Why were you working at a restaurant?" Chiyo asked. Kyoko looked at her parents, trying to ask for permission to explain the reason. She wasn't sure if they understood her message, but they nodded at her to keep talking._

"_To get more food." Kyoko saw her father bury his face in his hands, and he cried. _

"_Why did you need to get more food?" _

_She knew she shouldn't say it was because they hadn't had any in too long. _

"_Do you have enough food here?" She pressed on. _

"_We will." Her mother assured. "Our family has been having some difficult times recently. People do not always understand or appreciate my husband's teachings. But they will. And when they do, we'll have more than enough and nothing like this will have to ever happen again." _

"_But in the meantime, you do not have enough to provide for your children?" The social worker asked critically. Kyoko felt herself getting angry. _

"_We do! My-" _Her mother's voice became distorted, like she was speaking through a machine.

Something happened that cut off Kyoko's reverie. Kyoko lifted her head off the barren kitchen table and tried to think. What had her mother said? She couldn't remember. It was making her head hurt to try to think about it.

"_Why didn't you before?" The social worker continued. "Why did you have such a severe food shortage if you could –" _The voice became distorted in the same way.

"What the fuck?" Kyoko asked herself. This had never happened before. She rubbed at her temples, trying to simultaneously think harder and soothe her head.

"_Don't worry, I'll-" _Her mother's voice was distorted again.

_The social worker looked at her skeptically and nodded. She said they would follow up in a few weeks. _

"_Our fortune truly will turn." Her father assured. _

"_Of course they will, Mr. Sakura." Chiyo said kindly. It was obvious she was just humouring them. She wasn't really listening; she didn't really believe._

_She called him 'Mister' for crying out loud! _

_Kyoko felt herself getting angry again. She said nothing as they left. She nodded when they asked if she would testify. She was angry and wanted them to leave. _

_Her parents cried more after they left. Her father called himself a failure. Kyoko asked if she could go outside for a bit. They let her. _

_She marched angrily through the cemetery. She screamed in anger. _

_It wasn't fair! Why did no one believe them?! Why did no one listen to them?! _

"_I can help you." An androgynous voice said calmly behind her. Kyoko whipped around, startled. _

_Sitting on one of the gravestones was the oddest creature she had ever seen. It looked like a cat, but it had white wings coming out of its ears._

"_Did you just talk to me?" _

"_Not quite. I just communicated with you telepathically Sakura Kyoko." How did it know her name?_

"_What are you?" _

"_My name is Kyubey. I'm here to offer you an opportunity. If you make a wish, any wish at all, I can grant it for you!" _

"_Why would you do that? I still don't understand what you are." She asked. She didn't want to come off as rude, but this strange cat-genie thing was the weirdest thing she had ever seen. She wondered if she had fallen asleep at some point and was just having a really weird dream._

"_You're not dreaming, Kyoko. I want to help you because if you make a wish, you will become a magical girl that can fight witches! Witches spread the seeds of despair throughout the world. I am trying to find more magical girls who can fight them. You have more than enough potential to be a magical girl, and you seem to have a wish in mind…" it hinted. _

"_So you can grant me a wish? Any wish at all?" She still didn't believe she wasn't dreaming. _

"_Of course!" _

"_And I'll get to be a magical girl that helps protect people's happiness?" _

"_Yes!" _

_It sounded so cool. It sounded perfect. _

"_Are you an angel?" Maybe they had been wrong about what angels looked like all these years? It was natural for humankind to be vain, according to her father; maybe making angels in human's image was part of that vanity. _

"_I have been called that a number of times by your people." It swished its tail. That didn't quite answer her question, but alright._

"_So I could wish for a magical porridge pot that could create an unending supply of porridge?" _

"_If you would like. Is that your wish?" _

_No. No, it wasn't._

_She didn't want to be angry anymore. She didn't want to watch her family be hungry anymore. She didn't want to watch her parents fight or cry anymore. _

_And she knew exactly what was making all of that happen. _

"_I wish everybody would listen to my father." She said, closing her eyes and clasping her hands in front of her chest in prayer. _

_She winced as she felt something deep within her being pulled out of her chest. _

"_Consider it done! Sakura Kyoko, take your soul gem and accept your destiny!" _

_She reached forward and clasped the glowing red gem in her hands._

_She had sought out God's opportunity and found it after all._

Kyoko rubbed her forehead. She had remembered her stupidity. She had remembered most of it quite vividly.

She remembered all of the people who made her so angry.

She remembered that disgusting bastard, who she fully understood now, and what he did to her and how it made her feel.

She remembered so much of it.

So why the hell couldn't she remember what her mother and that social worker were talking about?

Normally, she wouldn't be too concerned. She would assume it was memory loss, because this was such a long time ago now.

But it didn't feel like that.

It felt like magic, and she couldn't understand why it felt like that.

She hated having feelings she couldn't understand. She'd experienced that phenomenon her whole life; surely by the time she turned twenty, she should be over that.

She couldn't focus on her confusion or frustrations for long though. Her phone started to ring; the pay-as-you-go phone the Miyamotos gave her.

"Hello?" She asked with an unpleasant tone.

"Hello sunshine. It's time. Meet me tomorrow at the abandoned hotel in the Old Industrial District at nine pm. Do you have a shift tomorrow?" Suki sounded like she didn't care what the answer to the question would be; she probably didn't, really.

Tomorrow was Thursday. She never had shifts on Thursdays.

"I'm free. See you there." She hung up.

She didn't notice her soul gem had darkened a tinge.

* * *

Sayaka fiddled with the sleeves on her jacket uncomfortably.

"And go." A techie commanded.

"Testing, one two three, test." She said obediently.

The van they were in was horribly cliché; a plain white truck with shaded windows. She couldn't tell if they were trying to scream 'We're cops!' or 'We're rapists!'. She supposed it was good to try to blend in with the enemies, but this was just painful.

"We're good." He gave a thumbs up.

"Miki, can you hear me?" Ryo asked into her ear piece. They had already tested it a few minutes before.

"Aye captain." She said, which her wire picked up. It thankfully didn't look bulky at all underneath her jacket. Surveillance technology had become must smaller and more discrete.

The wire included a GPS tracker, in case they had to transport her directly to the Miyamotos to catch them. It was very, very unsettling.

Her gun didn't look bulky under her jacket either. It wasn't easy to get to though, and that was even more unsettling.

She looked at a compact mirror to study her makeup job; the force helped with some of the more complex parts, such as making her old needle marks look fresh and administering eye drops that stung like a bitch but made her eyes suitably bloodshot. She had put on her dark makeup the way she used to, then rubbed it around to make it look splotchy. Her hair looked like it used to look nice and sleek, but was later mussed up and tangled in a fight or a fit of passion with a lover.

She looked just like she got back from a crazy bender.

"Alright. There's a condemned building, a former hotel not far from here-"

"I'm very familiar with the old hotel captain." It was a well-known crack house. She had spent more than her fair share of nights there.

"Right. Now when you enter through the front door, be sure to not draw too much suspicion to yourself. We don't know what kind of surveillance they have there."

"If I may captain?" She said with a sigh.

"What is it, Miki?"

"No one ever uses the front door, sir. The only accessible room is the front lobby. I would like to see if the hole beside the dumpster is still there." That, and the front door would be obvious as hell.

"Ah…do what you feel is right Miki. Just try not to put yourself in a place where it will be difficult for us to come in and back you up."

_Good luck with that. _She thought sardonically. The reason the hotel was such a consistent favourite was because it was easy to hide from people if they didn't know it well. She had vague recollections of a time she and Nakazawa had to hide from an angry dealer; they ran into some air ducts and hid out in the old generator room.

"I'll do my best sir."

"Good. We'll drop you off slightly closer to the site. Good luck Miki. We're all rooting for you."

The car lurched as it moved forward. She felt nauseous.

There were so many ways this could go wrong.

She took a deep breath and got ready to go.

* * *

Kyoko fiddled with the sleeves of her jacket uncomfortably. While she was no stranger to nights in abandoned buildings, she had gotten used to the luxury of an apartment over the past six years.

She felt dirty just standing in this place.

She knew this old hotel; her father had gotten banned from the premises in an overly dramatic and humiliating way that involved the police so she never went near it. Now that she thought about it, she probably could have served some divine justice to the place after she first got her magic to feel a bit better.

She never had to, of course. The top half of the hotel had been ripped off by Walpurgisnacht and the owners never bothered to fix it. This whole section of town, aside from a few select fortunate buildings had been pretty badly damaged.

No one was going to want to stay in this district for a long time.

She had been instructed not to go through the front lobby. Apparently it had been booby trapped a few years ago, as that was usually where cops tried to go in. There were a few well-hidden holes along the sides of the building that most junkies came in through.

Suki told her to use the back door, which she would unlock for her. She said they deserved to be 'civilized'.

The door had opened easily enough and she was now standing in what may have been a surveillance room long ago. There were screens everywhere. None of them were turned on though.

It felt dead.

"I'm glad you came right on time. I hate waiting." Suki said nonchalantly. Kyoko figured she was hoping to sneak up on her.

She could sense her coming from a mile away though.

"And I hate coming to shitholes like this, so I figured I might as well just hurry up and finish up this fucking favour for you." She mimicked Suki's tone. She turned around to see Suki's obnoxious smirk and Megumi and Atahiko standing behind her obediently.

"Too chicken shit to talk to me alone?" Kyoko taunted. Suki guffawed.

"Atahiko is one of my best. He's been training our newest recruit, Megumi here."

"Taking on two jobs? I would have thought that would be bad for your health." Kyoko commented coolly. Megumi looked like a rat that had been noticed by a cat. Suki laughed again.

"He will only be working with us quite soon." _That's cryptic. _"If it's up to me, you will be doing the same."

"I wouldn't think Kurosawa would appreciate you taking two of his employees."

"I wouldn't think either of you would appreciate being tied to him as an 'employee', considering what your standing was before. Really now, it's just degrading to both of us as women in this industry to see how he's treating you; I hope you know you're better than that. I wonder why you even put up with it."

That stung; but Kyoko said nothing.

"I meant what I just said. I hope you'll be working with us soon; not for us, but _with _us. That's why I called you here. I can't make you work in my sector forever, but I want you to at least _try _it."

"What? No, I don't-" Kyoko had always sworn to herself that she would _never _be involved with human trafficking. She had some questionable morals, sure, but this was too much.

"You owe me a favour. This is the favour I'm asking. I want you to try it. If you don't like it, you'll never have to do it again. It's simple, alright? Just make it through the night, and the debt will be paid. Who knows? You probably won't even find any of the targets tonight. We've been having bad luck with them recently." The last sentence was muttered as an afterthought.

"Can I ask if I can do another favour instead?" Kyoko murmured. It was humiliating being in this situation at all.

"If you can't make it through the night, yeah, I'll get another favour for you. However, this is the one I want you to do. Just try it. You're going to have these two with you, so if you want they can even do the work while you just shadow them. It's fine if you're not an active part of it. I'm not going to test you or anything on this after."

Kyoko's lip was curled in discomfort and disgust. She assumed she would be asked to hide a few bodies or something; maybe enchant an official or two.

But more importantly: she couldn't figure out what the hell Miyamoto was playing it.

It bothered her.

"You owe us. This is how you can pay it back. Are we good?"

Kyoko nodded subtly.

She couldn't think strategically if she had no idea what her opponent was thinking.

"I'm glad. I look forward to working with you tonight." Suki bowed politely. Kyoko raised an eyebrow at her courtesy skeptically. "You're not a stripper here; you're a colleague. I have no reason to be impolite."

Kyoko nodded again.

"Atahiko will brief both of you. I need to meet with someone nearby, but he has my number if you need any help. Don't be afraid to ask questions. I wish you luck, whatever that may mean for you." Suki bowed again to the three of them and left through a hole in the wall Kyoko hadn't even noticed before.

"Alright, let's get started." Atahiko sighed.

* * *

Sayaka shut off her senses. It was a sensation she was familiar with, but the practice had always been assisted by other substances before. This time, she had to force her own conscious thought to do it.

The hole by the dumpster was still there. When she entered, she ignored her sense of smell. She didn't remember the place always reeking of human shit and sweat, but maybe she had smelled like it before too and hadn't noticed. She shut it off.

She couldn't seem sober. She couldn't seem in control. It was too suspicious here.

She shut off her sense of balance. She let her legs wobble. She let her steps be uneven and her stride go sideways.

She shut off her sense of self-preservation. She let herself fall and didn't use her hands to break it. She landed hard on her face.

She shut off her sense of pain. She knew it hurt like hell, but she couldn't let it show.

She pretended to be unconscious in what had formerly been the third conference room. She couldn't recognize what colour the carpet used to be, but she could recognize that it reeked of mould.

She wished she hadn't let herself fall face first. She honestly hadn't thought about it. Realistically, that was the right way to go about it, but this was still profoundly uncomfortable.

She heard the floor creak. Someone walked into the room. Their steps were as unsure as hers had been.

She shut off her sense of fear, which was threatening to send her into flight mode. The steps were coming towards her.

She was rolled over. She could at least appreciate that she didn't have her face buried into a carpet that had developed its own ecosystem over the years.

She kept her eyes closed, face relaxed, and breathing even.

It was hard. She was so tempted to open her eyes to see who was observing her.

She felt cold hand feel her face and pull open her mouth.

_Holy fuck if someone tries to put their dick in my mouth Ryo can't expect me to not shoot them. _

The hands moved away and unzipped her jacket. Her heart started to race; the wire was attached to the inner part of her coat.

Whoever was undressing her didn't seem to notice. They lifted her shirt and Sayaka could feel their cold hands tracing along her skin as they did.

It was gross.

She wondered how many times this had happened to her when she was actually unconscious.

The hands pulled the jacket off completely. They pulled the sleeves up on her black zip up hoodie she was wearing.

She could feel the hands pushing at her needle mark scars.

She worried that they looked too fake. Part of her makeup had been making the old scars look fresher.

The hands pulled down the sleeves and put her coat back on, zipping it up and pulling the hood over her face again.

She wondered briefly if she was safe.

The hands grabbed her ankles and started to drag her out of the room.

_Apparently not. _

Her breath picked up a bit. The dragging stopped.

"You're okay Miki. Just stay calm." She heard Ryo whisper in her ear.

She slowed her breath and again and murmured incoherently, trying to pass it off as her having an odd dream.

The hands accepted this and kept pulling her.

A few minutes later, she felt the hands drop her legs and pulled her up under her arms.

The body of the hands reeked; whoever was pulling her clearly hadn't bathed in weeks.

Their breath in particular was disgusting.

She was pushed inside a small room; maybe a closet? Her legs were pushed against her chest and she heard a door close.

She was definitely in a closet.

"Are you alone?" Ryo whispered again.

"In a closet." She murmured in the same way that made her sound like she was asleep.

"That's good. That's really good. If someone moved you in there, you might be a target. Just stay calm and stay there. We're staying close. You're safe."

She didn't believe him, but she said nothing.

This closet was really hurting her back.

* * *

Kyoko shut off her senses. After learning that magical girls became witches, she had learned to ignore her sense of right and wrong when she killed them and hoarded grief seeds for her and Yuma.

Magical girls made mistakes by making contracts, so they kind of deserved what happened to them, right?

And addicts made mistakes by trying drugs at all, so they kind of deserved what happened to them too, right?

She never really convinced herself that either of those thoughts were true, but she ignored it.

"First rule: only take a girl whose picture has a red 'x' on the back. That means we're confident that we can take them and no one will ask questions." Atahiko explained. Megumi looked bored; Kyoko guessed he had already heard it all before. "If you see one, let me know. Don't try to take them alone; always have someone to help you. And for the love of god, be careful for friends or boyfriends nearby." He snarled, as if speaking from experience.

She flipped through the pictures they had. There were twelve in all. Three had red x marks on the back.

One of them was a pretty young woman with an aristocratically pointed nose, curly black hair and thin lips. Her eyes were closed in the picture, but she would be able to recognize her.

Another had short orange hair and an athletic build; she looked like she could play professional soccer. Her brown eyes were staring off somewhere unfocused.

The last one she recognized; Blue, the current cop. She was the only one whose photo had a smile, but it looked crazed. She was a lot prettier when she wasn't high.

"Second rule: for any girls who don't have a red x on the back that you see, just make a tick mark on the back." All of the photos had tick marks; the ones with red x marks had the most.

"Third rule: if you see a girl who we don't have a photo of, but you think could be a good candidate, take a picture of them. We'll start to keep track of them after."

"What makes a good candidate?" Kyoko was morbidly curious.

"Someone young and attractive who doesn't look like drugs have fucked up their bodies too much."

"Ah." She looked away.

"Last rule: we have some helpers in here. See, sometimes the regulars here know more about who comes and goes than we do. They help us find the ones we're looking for in exchange for certain goods or services." Kyoko raised an eyebrow but nodded. "We only have two helpers; don't trust anyone else. We don't know who they are."

"Here, I have the photos." Megumi offered her his phone.

The first one was a guy in his late teens or early twenties with bad teeth. He looked like he had been using for a few years. He must have dyed his hair in rainbow colours before, because now his dark roots had grown pretty long, but the ends were still multiple colours. He looked ridiculous.

The second one, she recognized. It was the same, decayed looking old lady that had attacked her outside of the church. It didn't surprise her that she would be a helper. _Doesn't look like that bitch has a sense of right or wrong either at this point. _

"If they have found someone, they will ask you if you're an angel. The correct answer is 'if you take me to Bethlehem, I am'. Then they will show you whatever they've found." Kyoko cringed at the biblical reference, but nodded.

"Watch out for the crone though. She hasn't been very good lately. She brought me to someone who was clearly an undercover a few months ago. For fuck's sakes, they were sitting in the lobby. _Never _go in the lobby. There are only cops or newbies there. I think we're going to be done with her soon."

"What do you do when you're done with someone?"

"Talk to one of the Miyamotos. I've never seen it happen, but if take a shot in the dark, you're probably right."

Kyoko nodded solemnly. She knew the world was a cruel place. Her father wanted to change that; it made him cry every morning.

This was the first time where she felt like she was playing a very direct role in making the world a cruel place…at least to humans.

Sure, she let people, especially people like this become food for familiars; but it seemed kinder to let them fall prey to familiars and have a quick death than whatever it was the Miyamotos would steal and sell them into.

She tried to suppress a shiver at the thought.

"Any other questions?" Atahiko asked gruffly.

"No." She replied tersely.

"Can I ask you one then?" He didn't wait to let her respond. "Aren't you a stripper?"

"If you ever seriously thought she was just a stripper, you must be stupider than I thought." Megumi said snidely. Kyoko wondered how much he knew about her; probably about as much as everyone else, which was actually a damn lot.

"Well I figured she must be something else too; Suki's been on about her for years. I'm just wondering what she's doing as a stripper if she doesn't have to be one."

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Kyubey watching her closely silently smiling at her. Its head tilted, enquiring the same thing Atahiko just had. She shot a nasty look and gesture at him when Megumi and Atahiko turned their backs to her. He kept smiling at her.

She'd disembodied that rat thing before and it had the same smile on its face.

"Koko, before we actually go out there, I want to warn you: it's not pretty. _They're _not pretty. We're really looking for diamonds in the rough out there, you know?" Atahiko began.

"Cover your nose." Megumi finished. She nodded again and they opened the door.

The overwhelming odour of vomit greeted her immediately.

They weren't kidding.

She breathed through her mouth and walked with them.

They walked up a spiral staircase whose original colour and stability looked questionable in some parts. Atahiko walked with confidence like this was an everyday set of stairs, but his steps that skipped some or would switch from stepping to the center to the right and the left betrayed that. Megumi and Kyoko mimicked his motions as closely as possible.

They started on the top floor: the twelfth of what used to be a twenty story building. It had no roof.

There were only two people up there, laying on their backs and staring at the sky; two young men. They were so still, Kyoko was almost afraid they had frozen to death. She was shivering in her own black and red hoodless jacket.

"Nothing interesting up here. Next floor." Atahiko pried open an emergency exit door and they walked down more secure looking stone stairs.

The eleventh floor was shielded from the brisk spring air in most parts, so there were more people. She saw two filthy, elderly men searching through unconscious teenage boy's stuff. One of them was starting to touch the boy inappropriately on a bed. She moved forward to intervene but was pulled back by Atahiko who shook his head.

"Won't change anything anyways. They might just go after you. Leave him. He won't remember it anyways."

Kyoko would be able to wipe the floor with them; she knew that. The problem is that nobody else, including her current companions did.

"Let's go." Atahiko repeated.

They also saw a girl who had a yellow mark on the back of her photo on the floor. Her long auburn hair looked like it would have been beautiful had she washed her hair in the last week. Her skirt, which was far too short considering the temperature outside looked like it was fashionable and expensive. Kyoko suspected she came from a wealthy family.

She had a cord tied to her arm and she was injecting something into her arm. She saw them notice her and smiled flirtatiously, spreading her legs and taking two of her fingers to rub the outside of her black laced thong over her clit. Megumi smirked and raise an eyebrow inquisitively in return.

"Watch your back, Megumi." Atahiko said uncaringly. Megumi whipped around and saw an unattractive young woman trying to reach into her pocket. He smacked her hand away and stayed closer to Atahiko. Kyoko buried her hands further into her pockets where her wallet was to keep it safe.

She clenched her fists when she saw Atahiko make a mark on the back of the girl's photo.

They checked all of the former hotel rooms on that floor. One of the rooms had had a toilet that was clearly not fit for use but still had fresh shit in it.

This place was disgusting.

They did another floor with similar sights.

She thought back to the unconscious boy on the eleventh floor.

"Are you an angel?" They heard a gravelly masculine voice ask from behind them. It was the guy with the crazy hair. He looked pretty high.

"Only if you take me to Bethlehem." Atahiko said like he'd said it a million times. He held up the backs of photos and tilted his head. Kyoko wasn't sure what was happening.

"Yeah. Orange." The guy said. "Room 815. Alone."

"Show me." Atahiko said. While he had been a bumbling drunken fool at the club, he was stern and very professional here.

They went down the emergency exit stairs to the eighth floor.

"Megumi, get your gun out. This might be the real deal." Both men pulled guns from their jackets that Kyoko hadn't noticed, but was not surprised that they had. The pushed the cracked door with dull brass numbers "815" open.

It could have been a scene out of a twisted macabre version of Sleeping Beauty. The room was filthy like everything else in this hotel. The bed, which clearly should have been thrown out years ago was still perfectly made. On top of it laid the orange haired athletic girl sleeping on her back with her hands clasped on her stomach.

Her stomach appeared to protrude a bit; it was definitely larger than it had been in the photo: the photo with the red 'x' on the back.

Atahiko went over, carefully checking the closet, bathroom and under the bed first. He shook the girl. She didn't respond.

He lifted up her shirt, looking at her stomach.

Kyoko's brows furrowed in worry.

Her stomach was protruding and firm.

She was pregnant.

"Son of a bitch." Atahiko muttered. He pulled out his phone and dialled a number from memory.

"Hey, it's me. We have Orange alone and unconscious. She looks – ugh for fuck's sake, fine. We found _Topaz _who is alone and unconscious; are you fucking happy? Yeah, yeah, great, anyways: she looks pregnant. Yeah, yeah I know. Should we take her or leave her? I don't know, probably first trimester. Alright, see you in fifteen minutes. Bye."

The Miyamotos were clearly much less secretive over telecommunications than Tomi was.

But that didn't change the situation at hand: they found a girl with a red 'x' and they were going to take her.

"This is a lot for your first day. Kyoko, keep checking the other floors. Megumi, you're going to stay here and help me." Atahiko sounded very calm and authoritative. It disturbed her to think of how common this must be for him.

"Aye aye, captain." Megumi grinned and saluted. His excitement disturbed her more.

She had been clenching her fists for so long they were white now. She wanted to say something. She wanted to stop them.

She wanted to stop the elderly men on the eleventh floor.

But it wouldn't do anything good for her or Yuma.

"Kyoko. Keep checking the other floors."

This was disgusting. Everything about this was _disgusting. _

"Kyoko." Atahiko said louder. Kyoko quickly blinked and looked at him, snapped out of her personal crisis of ethics. "Go check other floors. Now. All Suki wanted was for you to see all of the floors. Now go." He dismissed her.

She inhaled and exhaled, but she still felt angry. She counted to ten, but she still felt angry. She imagined she was in an apple orchard, but she still felt angry.

She gnashed her teeth and reluctantly left. She still felt angry.

_Would you be proud of me, Dad? _

* * *

Sayaka wasn't sure how much time had passed. She didn't dare move from her profoundly uncomfortable position though, and she didn't dare open her eyes.

She could hear someone in the vicinity having loud sex though. She wondered if she had ever been that inconsiderate of everyone else in this place.

Probably.

"Anything happen yet?" Ryo's voice asked quietly directly into her ear. There was something that made her uneasy about the fact that her boss could do that at the moment in this place.

"No." She mumbled, as if asleep.

"Should we just go, Captain? It's been over ninety minutes." Ayumi's voice said, also directly in her ear. She was in another van that shared their encrypted radio frequency. _So that's how long I've been here. _

"Not yet. I can't imagine she would be brought into a closet and just left there." Ryo said.

"Captain, I have to respectfully disagree. I find high people do many nonsensical things. That is why we arrest so many of them." Ayumi replied in a professional tone. Sayaka imagined that the girl was ready to pull her hair out.

Sayaka was ready to leave this closet too. She wondered how easy it would be to find someone who could give her a hit or two.

It would feel _so _good.

The makeup on her left arm started to itch. She wished she could scratch it. But she didn't dare move.

She wasn't sure what would happen, or what she would do if she did.

Ryo sighed in aggravation.

"Miki, are you okay in there?"

"Okay for now." Sayaka muttered.

"Just wait another thirty minutes. Then you can leave."

"Yes sir." She mumbled, hoping the next thirty minutes would pass faster than the first ninety would.

She doubted it.

* * *

Kyoko wasn't sure how much time had passed. She checked each floor carefully as instructed, and she hated everything she saw.

She saw a few people who could have been in their twenties or fifties and were skin and bones. A few of them asked her if she was a dealer and tried to buy drugs from her. One of the had hundreds of thousands of yen, which she guessed was stolen from an ATM. She was tempted to take the money, but was honest and didn't.

She saw a man snorting something. It was morbidly fascinating to watch the way his eyes almost instantaneously glazed over. He flopped on the ground like a sack of potatoes with an idiotic grin etched on his face. When she went by again about twenty minutes later, he still hadn't moved.

She saw a couple fucking doggie style in a corridor; why they couldn't have at least gone into one of the equally filthy hotel rooms was beyond her.

It took her two floors to actually find someone eating food or drinking. There was a woman eating a bag of chips and drinking something out of a flask. Kyoko didn't want to bother finding out what the mysterious liquid was.

Overall, this was a depressing and _sickening _place and Kyoko had no idea why Suki wanted her to see the whole thing.

"Excuse me ma'am. Are you an angel?" A withered voice asked from behind her.

It was the old woman who had attacked her in the church.

"Only if you take me to Bethlehem." She said with dread. She didn't want to know what she would find, but she figured sabotaging the mission would be a good way to get on the Miyamotos' bad side.

The woman nodded eagerly, clearly not remember their nasty encounter a few weeks ago. She brought Kyoko down to the first floor.

They walked through a series of corridors and appeared to be near some conference rooms. She pointed to a supply closet, bouncing on the balls of her feet in anticipation.

"I put her in there. She looks good, right?"

Kyoko opened the door to see an unconscious body in a thick black coat that had been thrown in their haphazardly. It was a good thing she was out cold, because that position did not look comfortable at all.

Out of some kind of subconscious sympathy, Kyoko moved the girl into a more comfortable position. She pulled back the hood to look at her.

Kyoko felt like she swallowed rotten food.

It was _Blue. _

"I checked her before. She's not too skinny and doesn't have a lot of scars. She's cute enough, right? She's good?" The crone asked, desperately seeking approval.

Kyoko's phone rang.

"He…hello?" She asked. She had trouble speaking.

"Have you checked the floors?" Atahiko asked.

"Y..yeah almost. Uh, do you need anything else?"

"No, we dropped off Topaz. Do you want us to come get you?"

"Who is it? Are they other angels?" The crone asked excitedly.

"Shut up!" Kyoko snapped. "Not you, the woman."

"Ah shit, is the crone giving you a hard time? She's been bad lately. She's just desperate for a fix. If she doesn't have anything good, just get away from her. I'll pick you up in twenty minutes, but we probably shouldn't meet back there. We noticed more of the creeper white vans in the area than usual, and Suki suspects the extras might be Kurosawa's. Do you know where the old cult church is?"

Kyoko growled in irritation. "Yeah, I do."

"Great, meet me there in twenty. No matter what you do, avoid the main roads and the vans, got it?"

He hung up.

"Are the other angels coming? They'll be happy with her, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Kyoko tried to shake her off.

"When are the angels coming here? When will they see?"

Kyoko looked at the quirky cop that had given her an umbrella a few weeks ago. She and Yuma had used it a few times. It was a pretty blue colour, like the girl's eyes.

She felt even sadder looking at the girl, who she now realized kind of looked like Rin.

Both of them tried their hardest, and it just wasn't good enough.

This girl had pissed her off when they first met, yeah, but she didn't deserve the fate she was going to be sold into.

No one did, but especially not her; not the girl who gave away her umbrella and sought justice for a stolen 400 yen taiyaki.

She couldn't look at her. Not like this. Not right now.

She walked into the nearest conference room. She needed to think. If she was looking at that girl, she couldn't think.

"When are the angels coming here?"

"They'll be here soon." Kyoko said, trying to mentally formulate a plan.

Her planning came to a halt when she felt a blade against her throat. The crone kicked the door closed.

"No. Only the angels can take her." Her voice sounded much harder and younger now. It was still raspy though.

Kyoko looked into her pale blue eyes; they were not nearly as pretty as the officer's. However, this was the first time she had ever seen them looking rational at all. They looked fox-like and sharp.

Kyoko began to suspect the crone was somewhere in her forties, which was really, really sad. She looked terrible for her age; she could have passed for being in her seventies.

"I thought we already decided I was an angel." She asked coolly, pretending to not feel threatened at all. Last time, she was caught off guard too, but she hadn't managed to get a blade anywhere near her throat that time.

"I've never seen you before. How can I trust you? I want to see the others."

Kyoko narrowed her eyes, but pulled out her phone. She clicked redial to get Atahiko.

"Is everything alright there?"

She didn't want to say anything that could lead Atahiko to Blue, but she didn't want to leave her alone with the crazy lady. She also didn't want to get, well, stabbed but that she could probably handle.

Kyoko started to cry. She could put on quite a show when she had to.

"You have to help me! It's the woman. I think she's crazy! She has a knife to my throat right now and is going on and on about seeing girls that aren't here. She just took me to an empty supply closet and told me a mop was a cute girl. I think she's about to kill me!"

"What?!" She heard Atahiko, Suki in the background, and the crone ask with various tones of disbelief and fear.

"Put me on speaker _now_!" Suki commanded. Kyoko did as told.

"Listen to me you crazy old bitch. If you lay a single scratch on her, I will find you. I will find you and will cut you into a million tiny pieces and feed you to _dogs_ and no one will ever fucking know! Do you hear me? You are _not _going to hurt her. _No one _harms my angels, get it?" Kyoko barely recognized the voice on the phone. She was used to Suki being fairly loud, obnoxious and an all-around bitch, but she sounded quiet and deadly now.

The knife clattered to the ground.

"No, no! I didn't hurt her! I didn't…I didn't hold a knife to her! She's lying! She's a liar! And there really is-"

"Do yourself a favour and shut the fuck up. I'm tired of listening to you. You are going to let her go peacefully and if I hear a single word about you hurting her or interfering in any way, I _will _follow through with my promise. Am I clear?"

"Yes ma'am. But –"

"Good. See you soon." The line went dead. It wasn't clear who Suki was speaking to. There were a few moments of shared silence, nothing but their heavy breaths.

"You….you bitch!" The woman screamed, jumping at her.

Kyoko was humiliated that she actually let the woman land a nasty scratch to her face; it stung a bit.

Kyoko got her back though; a single punch knocked her out cold.

_Okay, okay. Think think think think think! _

Kyoko looked at the clock on her phone. She had about fifteen minutes to get to the church.

She could make it in seven, easily.

She needed a safe place to drop off Blue. Was there really any place in the Old Industrial District that could be considered safe?

One place. She could think of one place that she never wanted to go again. But it had changed, and it should do the trick.

She could make it there in five minutes, but it was in the opposite direction of the church.

She could probably make it there in two if she took a shortcut thought.

She could do this.

She darted out of the room and saw the blue-haired girl where she had left her.

"You are such a dumbass." She sneered, throwing her over her shoulder and sprinting for the exit off the side of the building. She skidded through it, barely avoiding smashing Blue's head against the wall.

She was about to get onto one of the streets which would lead her to the old homeless shelter, which been upgraded and accepted vulnerable adults twenty four hours a day. It had improved significantly since the former executive director had been fired for fraud, she had heard.

She heard screeching tires, and saw a white van come around the corner quickly.

_Son of a bitch! _

She ran back into the alley and saw a white van screech on the other side of the alley.

She only had one option.

She took the ladder of the fire escape and practically jumped up a story at a time until she go to the seventh floor and jumped onto the room of the adjacent building.

She could make this work.

She had to make this work.

Whether it the Kurosawas or the Miyamotos down there, she had to get Blue out of here.

"You are _such_ a dumbass!" She screamed at Blue again as she leaped onto another roof.

She was going to eat an entire extra-large pizza herself tonight, she decided.

* * *

Sayaka felt like she was flying. It was terrifying.

"SAYAKA WE'RE LOSING YOU! USE YOUR GUN! GET OUT OF THERE!" Ayumi screamed.

"No, Miki stay down! Everyone else, calm the fuck down and stop being so goddamned obvious! Miki, you're doing fantastically, just stay calm and stay _down_. We're right behind you."

"Captain, they're on the roofs! We're not right behind them! We're losing them!" The techie guy yelled.

Everyone was freaking out.

It was freaking _her _out.

She opened her eyes. She saw a cement alley pass by underneath her as her assailant jumped over it.

Now she was officially freaked out.

And really freaking confused.

She couldn't hear everything that happened after the two women went into the other room. Sayaka almost decided to blow her cover to make sure everything was alright when she heard one of them, who sounded almost _exactly _like Kyoko cry that the other had a knife against her throat. She had even moved her gun into her most accessible pocket, ready to use it. The argument ended quickly after that though and she didn't need to do anything.

"Miki, stay down! You're doing great! I will tell you when things are out of control and then you pull out the gun, got it?" His voice was loud, echoing through her head.

All of their voices were echoing through her head, and they were all saying different things.

It was really stressful, and if they had a meeting about this operation after, she was going to professionally suggest that only one person get communication privileges.

"Everything is still under control Miki." Ryo reassured.

They passed over another alley.

The gun fell out of her pocket.

Time almost stood still. She reached out to grab it, and even felt the warm metal graze her fingertips, just like the little bag of heroin had. And just like the little bag of heroin had, she was just barely unable to grasp it.

Her eyes widened and her mouth gaped as she watched her one real safety literally fall away from her.

The situation was not under control at all.

She was so, so, so beyond fucked.

* * *

Kyoko felt like she was flying. She almost forgot what it felt like to do something good for somebody else.

That, or her adrenaline was just pumping like crazy. This chase was terrifying, but kind of fun.

As a matter of fact, she had passed the shelter a few blocks back. There had even been two lampposts that were right in front of it and would make it easy to cross the street from above.

The vans were still speeding alongside her. Hell, they were even starting to pass her a bit. But that was exactly what she was counting on.

She could turn around way faster than they could.

She halted to an immediate stop. She had forgotten about the girl who was flung over her shoulder; Blue's head collided with her ass and nearly set her off balance, but she regained it quickly enough. She ran the other way.

She was about two minutes away from the shelter.

She used a bit of extra magic to boost her speed. Someone could have mistaken her for an Olympian at the speed and lengths of jumps she was going.

The shelter was in sight. This was going to work.

Kyoko grinned. This was going to be fun.

* * *

Sayaka felt like she couldn't breathe.

She didn't have her gun.

They were going in the opposite direction of the vans.

This person was superhuman or _something _because _no one _should be able to run that fast.

"Van three reporting, we are too far away to help. We are out of range, repeat we are out of range!" A man's voice who she had only heard today shouted.

"Van two reporting, we are trying to turn around asap. We are almost out of range, but we are working to get fully in." Ayumi sounded terrified.

"Situation is out of control! Everyone, put the sirens on! Miki, pull out your gun now!" Ryo shouted.

Sayaka was about to scream to scream about her situation, but her breath was stolen again.

Her assailant jumped, letting them fall about two stories onto the lamppost which made a nerve wracking groaning sound beneath her as she landed and ran across it. The other was not nearly as dramatic. It was still terrifying though.

The assailant landed and ran to a side door of a building. Sayaka heard the door being thrown open as she was about to gracelessly dropped to the ground. She closed her eyes out of instinct.

She was about to die. She knew it.

She braced herself for what was coming.

* * *

Kyoko felt like she couldn't breathe. Her heart was beating too fast. She had to get out of here.

She heard sirens nearby. Just what she needed right now.

She set the girl as gracefully on the floor as she could. She rung the little bell on the counter, hoping a staff would come soon.

She forced the girl's eyes open. They looked so bloodshot. The contrast between her blue irises and red veins was gross.

"You do no need drugs! You're better than that! You hear me? Don't do any fucking drugs!" She screamed at the girl. She could only pray the message would get through to her. It was disturbing to Kyoko to think this girl could be like the addicts she saw in the forsaken crack hotel.

The girl's pupils dilated as she looked into Kyoko's eyes, her mouth gaping.

Kyoko was pretty sure the girl was still high out of her mind and couldn't hear a damn thing she had just said.

She sighed and ran. She went onto a street away from the sirens. Once she was a safe distance away and the sirens stopped, she pressed redial.

"Where the hell are you? Are you alright?" Suki asked, evident concern and frustration in her voice.

"Yeah, I'm fine, but I wasn't able to get to the church. Could you get to the train station on Fourth Street or is that too busy a spot?" The station had been deserted for years. A new, nicer rail had been built after Walpurgisnacht so no one used this one. It might still have some security cameras or something though; she wasn't sure.

"No, that's fine. We'll be there in a few minutes."

Kyoko hid behind a pillar. They did arrive a few minutes later, driving much more discretely than Kurosawas' cars had. Kyoko wasted no time getting in.

Megumi sat next to Tsubasa in the front, who was driving. Atahiko and Suki were in the back with Kyoko. Kyoko never imagined she would be sitting knee to knee with the woman.

"You had an eventful first day!" Tsubasa tried to joke lightheartedly. If Kyoko were a more sunshine and rainbows kind of person, she might have smiled. As it was, she was still panting and just kind of nodded.

Suki held Kyoko's face in hands and turned her head towards her gently. For a second, Kyoko thought Suki was about to kiss her.

"What happened to your face?" She asked with concern.

"Huh?" Kyoko was confused.

"Your face. It's scratched. What happened to it?"

"Oh. It's no big deal. I actually did have the situation back there under control." Kyoko replied truthfully.

"I have no doubt that you did." Suki assured, and there seemed to be no malice or disbelief in her voice. "Still, you shouldn't have been in that situation at all."

"I'm very sorry that happened. I shouldn't have left you alone in there on your first day, and it was stupid of me to not give you a gun. I'm sorry Sakura, and I'm sorry Suki, Tsubasa, and Megumi. This was not acceptable." He bowed his shame in genuine shame.

"I would have made the same mistakes." Suki said forgivingly, patting his knee.

"Everything worked out alright, so there is nothing to fret over." Tsubasa smiled. "Except for your face, Kyoko. Do you need any disinfectant?"

"No, no, really it's fine." She couldn't help but compare the Miyamoto style of management to Kurosawa's. It was like day and night.

"Was it the old lady?" Suki asked casually, as if asking about the weather. Kyoko wasn't sure how big a deal it was. "There's no reason to not be honest about it."

Otherwise translated as: don't fucking lie to me, bitch.

"Yeah, she nicked me a bit. It's fine, I got her worse. I don't think she'll bother me again." The last part was a lie. This woman had attacked her twice now.

"Got her worse, eh? What'd you do? Don't you know you're supposed to respect your elders?" Atahiko grinned.

"Oh for fuck's sakes, the bitch is forty-eight. She just looks old as hell." Suki rolled her yes.

"Jesus Christ, the woman from the photos?" Megumi turned around, a look of disgust on his face. "Seems like it's kind of a hit or miss if an addict looks fuckable, huh?"

Kyoko grimaced at the thought. She thought about Blue, who certainly did look 'fuckable' according to general consensus. She wondered if she really knew how much danger she had been in today.

"Really though, what did you do? These two insist you're badass and can hold your own, but I mostly saw you as a damsel in distress." Atahiko was trying to piss her off. It was working.

"I knocked her out, and I can knock you out too."

"You knocked her out? She was conscious when we spoke to you and warned her, was she not?" Tsubasa asked as casually as Suki had.

"Uh, yeah she was."

"Did she hurt you before or after the conversation?" He pressed on, still oddly casual. Suki was looking at her through the corner of her eyes.

"After." Kyoko said, suppressing a nervous gulp.

She saw Tsubasa and Suki share a meaningful look through the rear view mirror.

"Thank you for your honesty, Sakura-san. I deeply apologize. If you choose to join us, I guarantee this will never happen again." Tsubasa said, brows furrowed. She could only see from looking into the mirror, from where he was observing her.

"It's not a big deal, really. It was the most exciting day I've had in a while." Kyoko grinned. She was more excited about saving Blue, but she would never say that that was why she was smiling.

Suki laughed and the men in the car grinned good-naturedly in return. "That's the spirit!"

"This has been a big day for all of us. Let's get dinner and drinks, on us." Suki gestured between herself and her brother. "Are you free, Kyoko? You could bring your sister. Can I call you Kyoko? I apologize that I never asked."

"Uh, yeah it's fine, I don't mind." Suki had caught Kyoko off guard again. The free food was tempting, but she didn't want to bring Yuma along for dinner with human traffickers; that seemed very, very wrong. "I'm busy though. Sorry."

"That's a shame. We already ordered the food. I guess some of it will just be thrown out then." Tsubasa shrugged.

"What? No, don't waste food like that! Let's just bring it home." Suki argued. This was the first time Kyoko fully agreed with her on anything.

"Matsuro's doesn't let people bring home food. It's part of why it's so posh." Megumi shrugged it off.

"What if we snuck it out?" Suki asked, clearly working through a logistical plan in her head.

"Give it up, Suki." Tsubasa said with a smile. "You and your food. But Kyoko, are you sure you don't want to join us? Matsuro's is one of the nicest restaurants in Kazamino!"

It was, and it pissed her off that any food at all would be wasted.

"Fine, I can come. But I won't bring my sister."

"Oh thank god, drinking with a teenager would be weird." Suki grinned. They worked through a plan to get there.

Both Kyoko and Suki decided they were going to sneak in Tupperware containers in purses to sneak out food.

* * *

It was a painful affair.

A few very elderly volunteers, some of whom she recognized as family members of other recovering addicts in her rehab group came to help her. The ones who recognized her looked absolutely heartbroken to see her.

She was about to explain that she was undercover.

Ryo and all of the twenty members on the force who barged in with guns drawn did that for her.

"EVERYONE DOWN ON THE GROUND!" Ryo had shouted authoritatively.

It was ridiculous. For god's sakes, a seventy year old woman helped an eighty year old man in a matching bright green t-shirt representing the drop-in centre onto the ground; his knees wouldn't let me move that quickly.

After explaining what had happened, all guns were immediately withdrawn and the cops helped all of the volunteers up while apologizing profusely.

An ambulance had to be called for one of the older women who was concerned she was going into cardiac arrest.

Sayaka told Ryo immediately that she had lost her gun. Six of the cops on standby were sent out to find it. They couldn't.

A report would have to be filed. She was terrified, because losing a Force-administered firearm was incredibly negligent and in the right circumstances could be grounds for dismissal.

Ryo assured her that he would handle the report and it would be fine. He told her to come in Saturday evening and they would file it together. She thought it was a weird time but agreed to it.

She sat alone outside while some of the other officers smoked around the corner to relieve their stress.

The operation had been a complete failure.

"Miki-san? Or, err, sorry Officer Miki?" A volunteer asked. Sayaka looked up and saw Karana-san, the vocal woman from the rehab meetings whose daughter had gone missing.

"Hello Karana-san. I'm surprised you're not at the meeting tonight. Have you been volunteering here for long?" Sayaka asked pleasantly with a tired smile on her face.

"For many months now, actually. I'm here full-time. I have been hoping my daughter would come here one day. This has been the most exciting day so far." Her tone was very snide. "I'm surprised you're not at the meeting tonight either. I hate to pry, but what are you doing down here? You look-" Her voice took on a concerned edge.

"This is a costume, don't worry." _Mostly true. _"I haven't relapsed at all. I'm just working."

"Working where? Doing what?"

"Working with the force like I have for the past number of months. I'm afraid I can't answer the 'what' due to confidentiality, Karana-san."

"I had a gun held to my head by your coworkers less than half an hour ago. I think I deserve an explanation as to what you were doing."

"I am very, very sorry for that incident Karana-san. I have no doubt that a report will be filed and an investigation will be launched. The proper officials will contact you and they will be more authorized to provide information than I would be." Sayaka felt like a recording thanking customers for their complaints.

"Do me a favour and cut the red tape bullshit." She narrowed her eyes. "As a citizen whose tax dollars helps pay _your _salary, I have a right to information."

"You pay taxes? Aren't you a full-time volunteer?" She asked exhaustedly.

Karana's eyes widened with offended shock.

_Shit. _

"I apologize Karana-san; that was uncalled for. This has been a long day." She laid her head down on her knees.

"Is everything alright here?" Ryo interjected.

She did not feel like seeing him right now.

"No, officer it's not alright. I was just requesting some information from Officer Miki about what you were doing in this area, and she wouldn't answer. I trust you will be more cooperative?" Her chest was puffed up. If she were taller than five foot two, she might have seemed intimidating.

"I am afraid that we cannot disclose that due to confidentiality. Our work here is still in progress. Once it has been completed, perhaps we will get the proper authorization to disclose it. Unfortunately, as of yet it could disrupt the progress of our project if we released any information to the public. We appreciate your concern and the excellent work you do for our community here ma'am." He bowed graciously. "We're certainly lucky to have you." He grinned. He looked quite handsome.

"Well, I suppose that makes sense. Sayaka, do tell me when you can, won't you? I just want to make sure you're safe." She said in an insincerely kind way.

"You know each other?" Ryo asked, a flash of concern crossing his face.

"Yes, I'm good friends with her mother. We do work for addictions awareness month together."

"I see. I apologize for having to clarify this, but please do not speak with Miki-san's parents about this. They are not aware of our work here either, and no one should know. It's atrocious enough that this blunder happened in front of all of you. I do apologize for this." He bowed again.

"Of course! I fully understand. I won't say a word. Would you like me to leave you two be or-"

"Yes please. Thank you very much for your cooperation ma'am." He smiled.

Sayaka bet her mother and father would be confronting her about this within the next week.

After Karana had left, Ryo sat down next to her and lay a paternal arm around her shoulder.

"Miki, if you ever have problems like that with the public: flirt with them, flatter them, or do both. Never try to actually reason." He smiled.

Sayaka smiled back tiredly. He rubbed her back in a consoling manner.

"I know I put you through a lot back there. You did great though. I'm proud of you. You push your limits the most. It makes you the best cop I've ever had. You know that, right?"

Sayaka blushed lightly and smiled. "Thanks Captain."

"I know you're pretty new to all of this, but Miki, this is the first major failure of an operation you've been a part of. How do you feel right now?"

"Uh, bad, I guess. I'm sorry I'm not quite sure where you're going with this."

Ryo laughed.

"I'm not sure either. But you know what? By the time I was in the force as long as you've been, I'd been a part of at least five major failures. They happen. It doesn't matter if you have fifty failures, because as long as you have one success, you've won. Just remember: we haven't lost yet." He ruffled her hair. She couldn't muster the strength to make her smile more energetic. She tiredly batted his hand away.

"Still, it's your first. So it sucks. I know." He reached into his coat pocket. "I don't normally do this, but do you want a smoke? It always helps me calm down a bit after a bad day."

He held out the stick of nicotine to her.

She blinked at it.

It didn't appeal to her at all.

"No thanks Captain. I don't think I really need one. I appreciate the offer though." She said sincerely.

"Fair enough. I've never seen you smoke before, so I guess you're not much of a smoker. You drink though, right? I heard some murmurs about needing a strong drink after this. Maybe you should come along too?"

She did drink. She sometimes had wine to wind down with Hitomi. She had not too long ago, in fact.

The thought of drinking didn't appeal to her either.

She just didn't feel like it. At all.

"No thanks Captain. I don't really feel like having a drink either. I think I just really want a nice relaxing bath and to watch a silly movie." Her tone remained genuine, but it was laced with confusion.

"You don't seem so sure of that."

"No, actually I am. I'm just confused because I'm sure of that, if that makes any sense. Normally, I'd be happy to go out for a drink after a day like this, but I just don't want to."

"We all cope with bad work days differently. It's probably healthier that you not drink; you might get a beer gut like the rest of us if you do." He laughed jovially while patting his gut that had a bit of a layer of fat, but not nearly enough to be considered a beer gut. "Well, as your captain and emergency contact, it's my job to make sure you're alright. Don't be afraid to give me a call if you need any support, alright champ?"

"Yeah, you got it boss." She smiled back.

Something had changed inside of her. She wasn't sure what, but she knew how.

It was something in the way Kyoko spoke to her. She had no idea why, because she had heard the spiel about not needing drugs for years from dozens of people with whom she had varying degrees of familiarity and closeness, but this time it _stuck _with her.

Kyoko's words had struck a chord within her and penetrated her in a way no one's ever had before.

It seemed like Kyoko had this amazing ability or gift or charisma or magic or _something _that could just _impact _her like she was being hit by a freight train.

She wondered what that meant.

All she knew is that this time, if it actually stayed with her, it would be a really, really good thing.

* * *

It was a painful affair. Kyoko really had no idea why she expected anything otherwise.

"And so there I am, thinking I finally got Blue. Ah, sorry Suki, _Sapphire_." Atahiko rolled his eyes. "So there I am, thinking I finally got Sapphire. See, we'd seen her over and over again, and by the time we finally upgraded her to a red, she's gone for like, two weeks. I don't know what happened; her parents probably locked her up or something.

"Anyways, I finally see her totally passed out in the corner of a shithole room on the second floor. Like, there was a literal hole in the wall that had shit in it. Well, not literal shit, you know, but like random shit like food wrappers and mould and gross non-shit shit. But anyways, she's in a shithole room, passed out, and she's even in a room right be the stairs so it would be easy to get her down to the pick-up point.

"I'm stoked and ready to get a bonus and go out for drinks, maybe see some sexy ladies at the good ol' club, you know? I go in, check her vitals to make sure she's not dead or anything gross like that, and she's not. And then I swear to god, out of fucking nowhere, this fucking lunatic comes out and he just" Atahiko made a slicing motion over the scar on his left cheek "slashes me with a fucking knife. Seriously, if I weren't so surprised, I would have killed the fucker. But I was surprised and a noob, and then he" He made a jabbing motion into his right shoulder "stabbed me right there. I've had problems with my damn rotator cuff for two fucking years now. I can't even work alone anymore because I can't lift too heavy with it. It's fucking humiliating, you know? So seriously man: that's why you got to check _everywhere_. They fucking hide man. They can fucking hide and sneak up on and you and _jump _you. They're like the monsters hiding under your bed you were scared shitless by as a kid, but they're real and weirder."

Kyoko shovelled more of the food, most of which she had never heard of (_really, what the fuck is es-car-goh? I thought this was supposed to be a Japanese place_) into her mouth. It gave her an excuse not to talk too. They were all sharing details of their exploits, all of which she'd rather not know about.

It hit even closer to home hearing him talk about Blue like that.

"I call dibs on pounding that bitch if we get her." Atahiko said callously.

"Based on what you said, she's probably not a virgin so we can't sell that, so go for it." Suki grinned and stuck her tongue out to imply she was kidding around. Kyoko thought it was a disgusting thing to be joking about.

"This is why I love working for you. You're the coolest boss everrrrr! Drink!" Megumi thrusted the overpriced sake at her. She laughed and shook her head.

"Not in the mood tonight. Thanks though." She said politely.

"But we just got my first one! Isn't that reason enough to be in the mood? Come on, drink!" Megumi grinned.

"No, really. Thanks though." She said more firmly.

"Why not?" He pouted.

"She's always weird about the pregnant ones." Atahiko slurred.

Suki tensed.

"And that's enough for you, my friend." Tsubasa said pleasantly, pulling the alcohol away from Atahiko.

There were a few painfully awkward minutes of silence.

"So…Tsubasa." Megumi started, clearly trying to find a conversation topic. "What is it exactly that you do?"

Tsubasa laughed merrily. "I'm a doctor, actually. Licensed and everything."

"Wow, really?" Megumi was surprised. Kyoko was too for that matter. "Hey, I've had this weird lump starting to grow on the back of my arm, could you check it out for me?"

While Megumi and Tsubasa discussed skin defects, Kyoko started shoving food into a tupperware container she hid in an oversized purse. She was ready to leave. The conversations had turned from morally revolting to just traditionally revolting.

"I really am sorry you had to be there for that today." Suki said quietly to her.

"The old woman? Don't worry about it, it's fine." Kyoko wanted to shrug her off and get out as quickly as possible.

"No, not that. For finding someone. I honestly didn't think they would. That wasn't why I wanted you to be there."

"Then why did you want me there? Don't you want me to work for you? This is the shit you do, and would need me to do."

"This is the shit we do now, yeah." _What's that supposed to mean? _"It was never going to be part of your job description though. That would be a major waste of your talents. Kyoko, I wanted you to see how they live."

It pained Kyoko to admit, but she was curious. She didn't quite understand where the cunt was going with this, but she was curious.

"Have you ever had any experience with someone who has an addiction, Kyoko?"

She thought of her father, who became an alcoholic towards the end of his life. She thought of Rin. She thought of Blue, who she really didn't know that well, but she still considered her an almost-friend in a weird, twisted way.

"Yeah. I have."

"Like, really known someone or just kind of knew someone. Trust me, it's completely different when you know them really well, or _live _with them." Her eyes darkened, focused intently on a beautifully drawn sakura blossom on the wallpaper.

"My father was an alcoholic." Kyoko narrowed her eyes. Suki looked at her surprised, and her face softened.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Do you remember him before he became an alcoholic?"

"Yeah. I did."

"Was he the same person after? Could you even recognize him?"

Kyoko glared at Suki. Suki just looked at her sadly. Kyoko exhaled. She didn't feel angry; not when her expression was like that.

"No. I couldn't."

"We aren't stealing 'people', Kyoko. We're stealing addictions; shells. That's how I see it. What you saw in that hotel weren't people. They were just shells filled with nothing but their addictions. There's no helping them. There's no hope for them. All they're doing is destroying their lives and their loved ones." Suki focused on the same flower on the wall.

"No, you take people who are vulnerable and force them into sexual slavery. If you're some kind of altruistic hero putting them out of their misery or whatever, why not just kill them? And who are you to know there's no hope for them? They can get better."

Then she thought of Rin, who had basically had a meltdown just last week.

She thought of Blue, a respectable cop who she never would have thought was ever an addict.

Then she thought of Blue, who was passed out in the crack hotel today.

"Did your father recover?"

Kyoko bristled and snarled. She clenched her fists and counted to ten in her head.

"What happened to him?"

"He killed himself, okay?" She said between clenched teeth.

She was feeling angry again.

"So did he, or did he not destroy your family?"

Before Kyoko knew what she was doing, she had already punched Suki in the face. Hard.

She got up, shoving the Tupperware into the bag and stuffing one last dumpling in her mouth as she stormed out of the room.

**AN: **Hello once again everyone! I am very, very sorry for the long wait. One of my biggest flaws as a writer is that I have trouble controlling length, which is part of why these take so long to turn out.

The good news is that this was only half of chapter five (haha, fuck my life this chapter was supposed to be one of the shorter ones), and the second half is already completed and will be released within the next few days! I seriously promise this time!

To help me with some of my length control problems, grammar, and as a general plot feedback provider, I would like to thank my beta the wonderful MagicalGay! MG is an awesome person and I am grateful for their help. Hopefully, I will be better at turning out chapters quickly!

Reviews, follows, and faves certainly make me feel warm and fuzzy inside and give me motivation, so please don't be shy! Constructive criticism makes me a better writer, so don't hesitate to provide that too! All feedback, good or bad is much appreciated!


	6. Chapter 6

**Warning: Dubcon/rape in this chapter near the end. Not as graphic or disturbing as some of the scenes from chapter five. There will not be a warning before it happens.  
**

**Chapter Six **

Sayaka didn't want to go back to the club tonight, but she had to. It was going to be a busy night, and she figured skipping out on something like tonight could get her fired. She had already been told to take a week off after the 'incident' last week. It was a miracle that Kyoko and Geisha backed her up. It was even more of a miracle that her cover hadn't been completely blown.

Ryo wouldn't be so proud of her then.

She wondered if she would be weird when she saw Kyoko.

She would have to try her hardest not to be.

It was decided at a meeting in the morning that they would retry the operation next Thursday. It had to be on Thursdays because that was when the Miyamotos tended to move.

She secured the wig to her head. She didn't look like her at all.

She was ready.

* * *

Kyoko didn't want to go back to the club tonight. At the very least, she had hoped the Miyamotos wouldn't come.

They did. And Suki had a broken nose.

It was pretty awkward.

"So what the hell happened to you?" Kurosawa asked, seeming genuinely concerned.

"Had a problem with a pickup yesterday is all. We made it work though. At least now Atahiko won't bitch that he's the only one who's been hurt on the job." She joked. Her voice sounded odd, almost nasal.

"This is why I let subordinates do the work. They're more suited to do dirty work. You should really consider trying my method."

"There are pros and cons to both systems." She replied politely, but in a way that inferred that she had no intention of listening to him at all.

"At the very least, you shouldn't be doing _that _kind of dirty work. It's no place for a woman. Look what happened to you!" He chided.

"This" she pointed to her nose "had nothing to do with me being a woman. This had everything to do with me being a dumbass. Get it right."

Rin looked profoundly uncomfortable and was shitty at hiding it.

"This conversation sucks." James joked. "I want to talk about Precious. Precious, are you feeling better? I'm really sorry for being an asshole. Forgive me, please." He stuck his bottom lip out like a child.

"Aww, how can you not forgive a face like that?" Lady cooed while pulling him into a not-so-gentle embrace.

"I learned my lesson, really. I had to go a whole _week_ without seeing my special Lady." James buried his hand into Lady's unnaturally large breasts and motorboated them. Lady squealed. Her voice had started sounding much higher recently. She heard rumours she was taking a larger dose of estrogen and was moving along well in her transition. Kyoko wasn't surprised; Lady had been talking about doing that for years.

Kyoko still rolled her eyes at the inappropriate display of affection.

"You're still a prick." Baby Kurosawa glared at the expatriate across from him.

"Fusao, he is our business partner. We should leave personal matters such as disagreements about senses of humour at home." Kurosawa scolded lightly.

"What are you talking about? I'm hilarious." James joked. "Your son's just jealous because I actually _have _a prick."

Fusao threw his uneaten chicken wing at James. It bounced directly off of James' forehead, landing on the ground. James laughed. Kyoko swallowed the urge to scream at them for wasting food.

"You are _not _five years old. Start acting like it." Kurosawa scolded much more harshly. "And for god's sakes, that's disgusting! I don't care what my cousin says, this place is filthy. Don't eat food that's been on the floor! Have some class, really."

Kyoko looked over and saw that Suki had picked up the chicken wing and was eating it. Suki flipped him off, but she could have easily been flipping off Kyoko too. "Five second rule."

"She's not fond of seeing food go to waste." Tsubasa said politely. "I can see that you don't know what it's like to be hungry, but she does."

"Can we not just have one mature conversation?"

"You're twins. If she's been hungry, you have too, right? Or were you just the asshole twin who ate all of her food?" James asked, not bothering to wipe the sauce off his forehead as he picked up a chicken wing of his own.

Tsubasa sent him a steely look that chilled the room. Kyoko had only ever seen the man appeared bothered by anything once, and that was last week.

Something about this seemed more personal though.

"Fuck off, asshole." Suki kicked James's shin. James laughed again and kicked her back.

Only Kyoko seemed to notice the way Suki quickly and tightly held Tsubasa's hand for just a moment.

She hated getting involved in clients' personal affairs.

"Koko, Precious, how about a show?" Kurosawa changed the topic.

* * *

Sayaka felt a distinct sense of dread going to the station to meet Ryo. She still had no idea why they had to meet on Saturday evening, but she wasn't one to tell her Captain how to do his job.

She had gone over to her parents at lunch. They didn't question why she didn't want to take her scarf off inside; she was really going to have to talk to Kyoko about the hickeys.

They did, however question why she missed dinner on Thursday.

"It was an important work project guys; I couldn't miss it. We need to do it again next Thursday too. I'm really hoping we finish up this project soon and maybe my schedule will calm down a bit. I'll also ask my boss if I can tell you what was going on afterwards, alright? I just can't now."

"Are you sure you're safe?" Her father asked, plenty of worry evident in his voice.

_No. _"Of course guys! It's fine."

She brought a uniform to work in case she needed to get changed, but she seemed to have been unofficially promoted to a position like a detective or something that didn't require her to wear it. She would have to ask Ryo about that at some point.

"Nice of you to show up Miki." Ryo said while looking at his watch. She was ten minutes late.

"My lunch with my parents went longer than expected. Sorry Captain."

"Miki, you're great at what you do, but you really need to figure something out to do about them. They're impacting your performance." He said coldly.

"I'm sorry sir."

"Don't be sorry. Do something about it. Anyways, come on." He walked her down a hallway she didn't go down much and procured a key to open a metal gate.

"Captain, where are we going?"

"Be quiet, Miki."

They saw a cop sitting in a surveillance room to their right.

"Shijiro! How have you been?" Ryo grinned to the tall, conventionally attractive man sitting at the monitors. His dark hair framed his face perfectly. Sayaka didn't think he looked like a tech guy at all.

"Not too bad Ryo, not too bad. Ah, is this the girl you were talking about before?"

"Yeah, that's her; my rising star! But sorry, I'm not here to chat for long. Remember that bet we made last week?"

"Yeah, yeah, I remember asshole. Here you go." The man typed in a few keys and a few of the monitors went black. "You're lucky I trust you."

"You're a good man, Shijiro. See you for drinks at the usual time?"

"You know it." He smiled pleasantly and waved them off. Once Ryo left the room, he gestured for Sayaka to follow him, demeanor completely changed.

"Uh, Captain I'm sorry to ask but –"

"Then don't ask and don't repeat what you saw. I'm doing this to save your ass Miki."

"Wha, wait Captain?"

"Your gun, Miki. You lost your gun. I'm not sure how you managed to do that, because it was secured to you tightly before." Sayaka's face paled, thinking about how she had moved it to a more accessible location to pull it out if she had to. "If we file a report on it, they'll pull you out of the Miyamoto and Tomi operations, even though you're the only one with a real way in."

They got to a large, heavy metal door. The sign next to it clearly read "evidence closet".

"Captain, I'm sorry but I don't think-"

"If you did, you wouldn't have lost your gun. You've got potential and I don't want to see you wasting it. This is the closest we've come to the Miyamotos, _ever_. Do you actually understand that? This is the closest we have ever come to getting some of the worst _human traffickers_, not only in our region but in all of Japan. Do you understand that?"

"Yes Captain." She nodded, swallowing a lump in her throat.

"Then act like it. Come on."

He unlocked the door and they entered. The room was crowded, but organized with stacks upon stacks of boxes.

"I knew there was a good one around the 5400 files. They're all closed now and no one should have any reason to look in them." He passed her a box that read '5412' absentmindedly as he fished through boxes. He didn't realize that she hadn't actually grabbed it and it was dropped on the floor.

A five pound bag of heroin fell, breaking the strained plastic.

"Son of a bitch! Miki, be careful."

Sayaka stared at white powder that had fallen around them. Ryo's face paled.

"Oh shit. Miki, Miki you need to-"

"I'll grab a dustpan. Are they in the maintenance closet?" She asked, dazed.

She was so confused.

She had absolutely _no _desire to take _any _of it.

None. At all.

The powder repulsed her even. It looked so messy. She just wanted it cleaned up. It was nothing but a mess.

"Are you alright?" His posture was tense, like he was ready to run away or jump on her at a second's notice.

"I'm fine." She had to let it sink in for a few minutes. "I'm completely fine. I don't care that there's heroin on the ground. I'm actually completely fine. I don't feel like I need it at all." She started to laugh. "I don't understand, but this is amazing. I've never felt like this before." _Not since before I started. _

She felt so _free_.

"I'm completely fine." She repeated to herself in amazement.

She hurried out and got the dustpan from the maintenance closet. She cleaned it up, put it in a garbage bag, and put it back in the banker's box like it wasn't her vice that had nearly killed her a few years ago that she had just cleaned up, touched, and had had _five pounds of _right in front of her.

She washed her hands after, the flecks of white being washed down the drain like they meant nothing to her.

Because they _did. _They didn't mean any sort of salvation or relief. They didn't mean a gateway to the amazing sensations she had missed.

They meant nothing.

She walked back to the evidence closet, where Ryo handed her a gun that had formerly been evidence in an illegal weapons dealing case. It was an identical make to the force-issued ones.

Ryo was gaping at her.

"Miki, I don't get it. What changed? When did you seem so much better?"

"I don't know." She laughed. She thought of Kyoko, but figured she shouldn't go so far as to give details about their inappropriate relationship to her boss. "I guess it was something at the operation on Thursday. I guess I just…" She struggled to find the right words to convey this strange phenomenon that she was told by dozens of professionals would be impossible. "I just really, really realized that I didn't want this anymore. I didn't want to be _craving _anymore. I didn't want to be that way again. I don't get it. This is supposed to be impossible, so I just don't get it."

Ryo stared at her dumfounded before his face broke out into a huge, radiant grin.

"Well if anyone could achieve the impossible, it would be you Miki. I'm not surprised one bit. Maybe just seeing what you really looked like from a sober point of view is all you needed! I knew a push in the right direction would fix you up!"

Part of Sayaka felt like she should correct him, but it seemed like he was right in this case. She had tried for so long to avoid her problems that she never thought that facing it dead on could help.

Was this really it? It felt so anticlimactic. She thought if she ever had any sort of epiphanies like these, that it would be like the light of heaven raining down on her, showing her the way.

It was just that she didn't feel like she had to do it anymore.

She wasn't sure how she would be able to describe this to her parents, friends, or rehab group. She was even starting to feel guilty by how easy it all seemed now, like the flick of a switch.

She was sure damn excited to tell them all though.

* * *

Kyoko felt a distinct sense of dread as she got ready to meet with Kurosawa and Tomi tonight. Apparently, she was being "loaned out" under some sort of long-term contract to a business connection of Kurosawa's.

He was going to be taking all of the profit, of course.

_Fucking bastard. _

She tried to finish up a quick stir fry for Yuma and herself before she left. They were going to meet afterwards to go hunting, so they had to be well-fed. One thing Kyoko learned early on is that fighting on an empty stomach was never a good idea.

"Do you want to put anything else in?" Kyoko asked Yuma who was reading an English book for school nearby. Yuma sniffed the air.

"Maybe a bit of soya sauce?"

"Sounds good to me." Kyoko tossed a splash in. Yuma freaking loved soya sauce, way more than Kyoko did. Kyoko preferred sweets to salty. Still, Yuma could throw some extra on after.

The rice was boiling nicely and almost done.

"Can you get the chocolate milk out of the fridge and get the dishes out?" She was working on doing a mental count of all of the things she needed to do. She didn't think she was missing anything.

"Sure!" Yuma chirped.

"Food's ready! Can you pass me the plates?"

"Yes master."

"Yeah, cause I made you do so much." Kyoko lightly cuffed the girl up the back of her head playfully before grabbing the plates for her. "Hey do you-"

Something hit her like a jolt of something like lightning or something and she fell to the floor in a heap.

She tried to get back up, but she couldn't.

She felt so _drained. _

"Kyoko?! Kyoko what's wrong?" Yuma was standing over her, terrified.

Kyoko couldn't move. She felt paralyzed. She was gasping for breath.

She felt like she had just thrown all of her magic into a single shot, but she didn't do anything.

"I can't find anything wrong with your body." Yuma was shaking. "I can't…Kyoko let me see your soul gem."

Kyoko tried to lift her hand but couldn't. Thankfully, Yuma seemed to understand and pulled the soul gem out for her.

Two pairs of cerulean and crimson eyes widened in shock.

Her soul gem, which she had touched up that morning, was nearly _black_.

"What the fuck?" She managed to gasp out.

She felt cold. She felt really, really cold.

"We have a few saved up, hang on." Yuma sprinted and came back with the four they had hidden in their dresser drawer.

It took three grief seeds to get her back to the bright apple red it had been before.

Kyoko could breathe again.

Yuma started to cry.

"What was that?!" She was shivering. "You were fine and then you were so close to turning. What was that?!"

"I don't know. I really, really don't know." Kyoko gathered Yuma into her arms and rocked her gently, trying to console her even though she was just as frightened.

_What the hell was that? _

"Kyubey, are you here?" Kyoko shouted out. Surely enough, Kyubey hopped out from behind a corner.

"Wow Kyoko! You came quite close to transforming there. It was very fortunate for you that Yuma was here. How are you feeling?" It asked in a voice that seemed almost perky. It pissed her off.

"Yeah, what the fuck was that? I didn't even do anything!"

Yuma cried a bit harder. Kyoko pulled her closer, if that were even possible.

"To be honest, I'm not really sure. I could venture a few guesses, but I don't know how helpful it would be. I could be completely wrong."

"I don't give a damn if you only have guesses, it's still better than anything we've got." She snapped. She hated asking this fucker for help; he was always so damn obtuse.

"Have you cast any permanent spells recently?"

"Permanent spells? What the hell are those?"

"They are exactly what the name implies: permanent. Most spells magical girls cast are temporary. For example, you create a barrier but it will be broken either by a hard hit or once a specific time period has passed. Once the barrier is no longer up, you no longer have to use any magic. But maybe you created a barrier that is meant to stay up forever and it sustained some heavy damage. Have you performed any spells like that recently?"

"No! Why the hell would I do that?"

"Who knows? You still never fully regained control of your magic after your family died, did you not?"

"Shut up!" She yelled at it.

"Why would you tell me to be quiet after you asked for my hypothesis? Did hearing my possible explanation upset you? I would have thought you would feel more at ease because you can now feel less uncertain about what your problem is." It tilted its head.

"Thank you Kyubey, that's enough." Yuma croaked sadly.

"Well, if I am right, you may want to gather a larger stockpile of grief seeds in case something like this happens again. I am not completely sure what has happened, but I would say that there is a significant risk that it could happen again." It wandered off and disappeared into shadows cast by the moonlight outside.

"What's happening to you?" Yuma asked sadly, silent tears falling as she buried her head further into Kyoko's chest.

"I…I don't know."

Kyoko really, really didn't want to go to that meeting now.

* * *

The next few days passed as a happy haze for Sayaka. She had a newfound skip in her step.

She even went back to the evidence closet a few times under the guise of trying to find information on Megumi and Atahiko just so she could hold heroin and feel the amazing feeling of not being tempted to do it.

She felt like she had nothing holding her back now. She could throw her all into getting the Miyamotos.

She was _powerful_ again.

"This week has been an amazing week for me." She said at the rehab meeting on Tuesday. "I have never felt so free. I was actually handling a five pound bag of heroin, which was a piece of evidence without supervision, and I had absolutely no desire to smoke it or inject it or anything! I don't know what happened, but it's suddenly like I'm done with everything. I don't get it, but it feels amazing!"

She was grinning ear to ear. The recovering addicts, particularly Tatsuya looked at her in awe. A few of the newer family members beamed, seeing hope of total recovery for their loved ones.

Her parents looked at her in confusion. The top therapist looked at her with concern.

"That's fantastic Miki-san, but I was to emphasize: I have never heard of something like this lasting permanently. I don't want to discount what you're saying, it's absolutely remarkable that you were able to handle evidence like that with no one present and you didn't take any, but it's not a typical milestone anyone reaches in their recovery. Please do _not_ handle your former vices as some kind of personal test because Miki-san was able to, is what I'm saying." Daisuke said, seeming very uncomfortable.

"What if that is the way to healing though?" A newer parent said. "Has any research been done into it? Maybe all of the research has been so focused on an avoidance technique that no one has even considered this as a possible alternative."

"I can't say I know much about research into Miki's methods, but I don't think it would work for the majority of cases."

"Your avoidance technique doesn't work for the majority of cases!" Another voice, a concerned grandfather shouted back.

Sayaka felt like she had created a heated debate in which people who had no idea what they were talking about were taking on strong positions.

"I agree with Daisuke-san! I'm not trying to say everyone should have their drugs of choice put in front of them so they can say 'no'! I had that happen to me twice in the past few weeks and it was disastrous both times. Please, have faith in this method. It really is the most proven to work."

"Twice? I thought there was only one." Her mother looked confused.

_Oh shit. _

"Ah, well, yeah."

"What was your second one? How did you get out of it?" An older female addict asked, peering at her with large owl-like eyes. She felt like the woman was staring into her soul.

Sayaka didn't have a story she could come up with on the spot.

Thankfully, Hitomi called her at just that moment, so she lied and said it was a work matter and took the call.

"Hello?" Sayaka asked.

"Hi Sayaka? I'm very sorry; I know you're usually at your sessions at this time. Am I interrupting you?"

"Yeah, but it's a totally perfect time for a distraction so I'm going to pretend you're my boss. Do you mind?" Just after she said that, her father emerged from the room, looking at her with furrowed brows.

"Oh, sure I don't mind. Can I keep talking like I normally do, or do I need to pretend to be your boss?"

"No, no, keep going as you were going Captain. What do you need?" Sayaka made a motion like 'just give me a minute!' to her father. He nodded but didn't move. She made a shooing motion with her hand. He shook his head and stayed still. She rolled her eyes and walked away. He followed her.

_Maybe Ryo was right. _

"Kyousuke and I have started fighting more and more recently. Today, he actually told me that I should try to leave the apartment to go out with him. I mean, I understand what he is saying and why he is saying that, but I don't know what brought those feelings on. He was always so good about it before." She could hear Hitomi's voice starting to get choked up. "I feel so weak and pathetic."

"No, no, no…Captain. You're not, uh" it was really hard to make this a believable conversation with Ryo. "You're not in the wrong at all sir. I'll support you if you would like. Would you like me to speak with him?"

"Could you Sayaka? I'm so sorry, I know how much being our mediator was starting to wear on your nerves."

"Not at all sir! I have much more spare time now so I can do this first thing tomorrow." She remembered that tomorrow she was going to be working overtime going over a more solid game plan for Thursday, and then working a shift at the club afterwards. "Actually, maybe…Friday." Thursday was going to be a gong show.

"Yes, yes, of course that's fine! Thank you Sayaka, thank you! I am so, so happy and grateful you're my friend." Hitomi said earnestly. Sayaka wondered how she could have ever been mad at her.

"Not a problem sir. Any time!"

They hung up and she realized she had to go back to the room. _Shit I should have drawn out the conversation a bit more. _

She turned around, ready to march back. She was busy forming a story in her head; something about an old dealer coming up to her on the street hearing that she was back in.

Her father was sitting on some stairs. He gestured for her to sit with him.

"What was the second incident, Fuzz?"

She didn't want to lie to him.

"_They're holding you back."_

"Dad, it was nothing, okay? I know you and Mom are worried about me, but I'm fine. I'm the best I've been in years even." She smiled at him encouragingly.

"It sounds like you're doing great, but this goes against anything we've ever heard. And for the record, yes, we're worried about you. And we'll never _stop_ being worried about you. We're your parents, and frankly we're the parents of a recovering addict. You'll never stop being one. Please, Sayaka just tell me what happened. We'll feel so much better if we know."

She had a few seconds to decide what the right thing to do would be.

She had no idea.

"I was on patrol in a bad area of town. One of my former dealers saw me and asked if I was still interested. I stood there like an idiot for ten minutes just staring at him. Ayumi had to take me away, and she had no idea what actually happened."

She lied.

_Guess that's still instinctual, huh? _

Her father looked concerned. "I don't know why, but I only believe part of what you're saying. Are you lying to me, Fuzz?"

"No, Dad. I don't know how to convince you that I'm not." She averted her gaze.

"You're not looking me in the eyes. Look at me and tell me that you're not lying."

She felt her cheeks flush with guilt. She tried to just get it over with.

"I'm not lying to you." She lied through her teeth.

He looked at her for a few moments, and sighed.

"Alright, Sayaka. Let's go back. You started quite a debate about addiction treatments in there." He smiled mirthlessly. Sayaka got up and followed up dutifully.

He turned the handle to open the door, but didn't pull it open.

"Hey Sayaka?"

"Yeah Dad?"

"I don't believe you." He said sadly, opening the door and gesturing for her to go in first.

* * *

The next few days passed as a disorienting haze for Kyoko.

She had gone to the meeting, despite Yuma's protests that she either stay home or focus on hunting as many witches as possible before she had another "magic attack" as they decided to call it.

It seemed like such a cute name to assign to such a horrific thing.

She was going to be helping out a local loan shark most evenings now that she wasn't working at the club. She was going to have to try hunting witches on her own during the days.

Yuma hated that suggestion because of the magic attacks.

She hoped it would be a one-time thing, but it wasn't. It happened three more times. She needed to have at least two grief seeds on her at all times.

She wondered how she would be able to get enough grief seeds for Yuma before she went to New York.

She wondered if she would survive if Yuma went to New York. The girl had to save her ass when a magic attack struck in the middle of a fight with a pretty weak witch.

It was a terrible situation all around.

"Maybe it's because you're so stressed with the church?" Yuma pondered aloud.

"I've been stressed with the church for years now; it never did anything like this before." A darker side of Kyoko wondered if this was just her time to die.

Yuma hit her.

"Don't think like that!"

_Right. Mind-reading thing. _

"Are there any spells you casted recently, or might have cast?" She pressed on.

"I really, really can't think of anything." Her main form of magic was her diamond barriers, and she had never been able to make one that lasted more than an hour. She was also pretty sure she would remember conjuring a giant spear and leaving it somewhere in the middle of the city.

Yuma paced the room. Kyoko flopped on the couch.

Kyoko's phone rang.

More specifically, Kyoko's phone from the Miyamotos rang.

She had four cellphones now: a Kurosawa phone, a Miyamoto, a loan shark, and a personal one. All of them were cheap pieces of shit too.

She'd rather have one nice phone.

"Hello."

"You didn't finish our favour last week." Suki said, the nasal hint in her voice almost gone. "This Thursday, same place. James will be giving you a package after your shift tomorrow night. Tsubasa and I won't be there. Please give me the package on Thursday. After that, you're done."

"How big of a package are we talking?"

"It's small, don't worry. You can handle it. See you Thursday?"

"Yeah. See you Thursday." Kyoko sighed, hanging up the phone.

Yuma looked at her sadly…hopelessly.

Despairingly.

"Please stop doing this to yourself Kyoko. It's so hard to watch." She squeaked.

She walked into the bedroom and gently closed the door. Kyoko knew she probably needed a few minutes alone, but didn't indulge her.

Kyoko held Yuma as she cried herself to sleep. After she was completely out, Kyoko snuck out to hunt a witch and work a shift for the loan shark.

* * *

The Miyamotos weren't at the club tonight, but Watanabe and the Kurosawas were. It was weird.

"It's quite relaxing not having those two around sometimes." Kurosawa mused from a massage table he had requested. The man was sitting shirtless, which Sayaka would have rather not seen. However, she had to observe carefully because she was going to be giving Fusao a massage; she hoped she would be able to copy Kyoko.

Kyoko calmly put some kind of scented oil on her hands, rubbing quickly before starting to knead the malleable body on her table. She seemed to lean into Kurosawa a bit as she worked.

Sayaka tried to do the same. She fell flat onto Fusao with an 'oomph' from both of them.

"Too much oil and lean." Kyoko said calmly.

The girl seemed a bit dead today.

"Sorry about that." She whispered apologetically to Fusao.

"If you're willing to wait, I can do you after James. I give the best massages here; an advantage of being a biological male." Lady joked. It was the first time Sayaka had ever heard her comment on her past like that, even though it was quite obvious she was in transition.

"I'm alright, thank you." Fusao said, a bit uncomfortably.

"Damn right, because Lady gives the best massages and I want her for the _whole_ night." He said the part suggestively. Lady blushed instead of giggled, which was rare. Sayaka noticed Kyoko quirk her eyebrow in irritation.

They spent the next few minutes in silence, with an occasional crack or grunt from one of the men on the table.

Sayaka was just trying to make her client feel somewhat good.

"Koko, a favour please." Kurosawa interjected in a way that implied he wasn't really asking, but more demanding.

"What would you like Kurosawa-sama." She replied in that same calm tone that didn't suit her at all.

"Give Precious a massage so she actually has some idea of what to do. I feel selfish that my son isn't getting the same relaxation we are."

"I don't mind. It's nice." Fusao said politely.

"No, he's right." Kyoko said. There was an extra table in the room. "Precious, over there." Kyoko ordered. "And take your clothes off."

Something about the professional way she said it made her uncomfortable, which was silly because she'd been naked in front of everyone here a few times, but she did as she was told.

The massage felt nice, but only lasted for a few minutes before they were both 'requested' to go back to work.

Sayaka was requested to not put her clothes back on.

She obliged, ignoring her discomfort.

She wondered why the Miyamotos weren't there.

* * *

The Miyamotos weren't at the club tonight. Kyoko didn't mind at all. She was glad to have a temporary reprieve from them.

She glanced over at Rin's nude body a few times; she really did have nice curves. She had a great ass in particular.

She focused on the tense muscles beneath her though, as was her job. She felt degraded for appreciating that Kurosawa didn't have the same perverted request that her son had and let her keep her clothes on.

She felt a bit of satisfaction making the older man grunt in pain beneath her fingertips.

It was nice to hurt him once in a while.

The shift passed on like that. Kurosawa paid for everything for everyone. It seemed he was taking James out on a business dinner or something.

The shift ended.

"Are you interested in discussing the shipment on the fifteenth at my home, James?"

"Can we talk about it next week?"

"Yes, whichever is better for you."

"Let's do that then, shall we? I'm ready to go to bed after that massage. Thanks for the treat." He smiled genuinely.

Everyone in the room made a point of ignoring the small man's prominent erection.

"I'll meet you outside?" Kyoko's superhuman hearing caught him whisper to Lady.

"Yes, see you in a bit."

"Don't forget."

"I won't."

Kyoko glanced back at him as they left to get changed. They had to get ready. James discretely nodded his head towards Lady, beckoning her to follow her tall friend. Kyoko nodded slightly and left.

She got ready to go. She had to meet Yuma soon for another witch hunt.

Rin was quick getting ready since her clothes were already off. She wished them all good night and left as soon as she could.

Lady slid an unlabeled sealed envelope to her.

"He told me to tell you not to open it until you're supposed to."

"Tell him I won't." She replied, just as discretely.

"What's in there, if you don't mind me asking?" Lady asked.

"I honestly have no idea."

* * *

This was the second attempt. Her makeup was done as immaculately imperfect as the last time. Her hair was also as dishevelled as before.

She once again looked like she had been on a bender.

They decided to have her gun secured to a more accessible place; they altered her coat so there was a hidden pocket she could reach into from the outside. They had to add more filling to the coat to make it more shapeless so it wouldn't stand out, but it worked.

"Test one two three test." She said methodically. She was given the go ahead.

She decided this time to actually go up to one of the rooms; it would probably be more comfortable there and that was where people usually crashed.

She stumbled up as convincingly as she had done before, going through the side entrance.

She stumbled into room 211, which was thankfully empty.

She didn't remember the beds smelling this bad when she had been there before. It could be because they hadn't been washed in at least two years, or she may have smelled just as bad as them before and just not noticed because she was nose blind.

She wasn't sure which she hoped it was.

She had chosen to collapse face-down in front of the bed so she wouldn't have to have her face right against the acridly odorous covers. Instead, she had her face against the acridly odorous carpets.

She had made a poor decision again, but she waited it out.

She waited it out like a good cop.

* * *

This was the second attempt. Kyoko was glad this duty would be quicker than her last one had been.

She wasn't looking forward to being alone with Suki, after the whole punching incident last time.

The building smelled just as bad as it did the first time. She didn't want to think of Suki's perspective on the people living there.

She had to admit, it was kind of hard not to when she saw the conditions of this place.

She waited in the generator room for a good twenty minutes. Kyoko wondered if this was some trap or way to get back at her for her lack of cooperation last time.

She wondered if they knew that she had gotten Blue out before.

The thought made her involuntarily shiver. She didn't need those kinds of thoughts right now. She had way more to worry about: her freaking life, which was one of them.

"Are you an angel?" The prematurely old woman croaked behind her.

"No, so fuck off." Kyoko snapped.

The old woman's eyes widened as she smiled a bit toothless smile. She took Kyoko's hand and led her away.

"I will show you a beautiful place filled with flowers and rainbows." The woman promised. Kyoko had no desire to go to this fictitious place, but she was hoping she would take her to Atahiko or Suki or somebody.

They went down to the basement. It looked like they were in a giant storage unit. It was a big, dark cement cavern filled with rows of crates.

It reeked of rotting food, which was a smell that pissed her off.

Sitting on some dusty crates was Suki. Her fox face glanced up at Kyoko and the crone.

"There you are! I was worried. I realized I didn't tell you the right place. That was my mistake, I'm sorry for wasting your time." Suki bowed respectfully.

"Oh, it's not a big deal. I guess I should have checked with you first." Kyoko said while rubbing the back of her head. "Here you go." She passed her the envelope.

"Thanks." Suki tucked the envelope in her pocket without looking at it. Kyoko raised an eyebrow. "I already know what it says. This just makes our lives easier."

"So you really didn't need me much for this, did you?"

"No. we didn't. But I wanted a chance to talk to you. I want you to hear me out, and hear out my offer to you, alright?"

Kyoko sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Fine, go ahead. I don't have any plans tonight aside from this. I thought this would be a big thing."

"I'm glad." She was quiet for a few minutes. "I'm not quite sure where to start with this."

"Just go for it." Kyoko said impatiently.

"Do you want to guess how old I was when I lost my virginity?"

Kyoko blinked at her in surprise.

"Uh, no, not really. Maybe I shouldn't have told you to go for it because that wasn't the best opening."

"I was five." She shrugged off Kyoko's suggestions.

"Wait, five?"

"Yeah. I was five."

Kyoko looked at the woman dumbfounded. She had assumed she and Tsubasa came from an affluent family.

"Were you-" Unsure of what to ask.

"My mother offered me to someone on the street. 50,000 yen for an hour with me. She used the money to buy meth after. She almost overdosed too." Suki set her steely gaze forwards.

Kyoko blinked at her again.

"I'm sorry to hear that." She couldn't think of anything else to say.

"My father was in and out of the picture. My mother was too, I guess. They were both addicts. I mostly looked after myself. I got pretty good at making ramen noodles when I was three. My mother had stolen an electric kettle which I used every day for four years. I thought it was for me, but I heard her say she thought it would be good for using drugs before she pawned it off."

"That really sucks." Kyoko nodded uncomfortably. Suki kept going, like she was spilling out her life story.

"I had a little sister for a while. She was born when I was six. I don't remember her name though. I just called her 'the baby'. I remembered her crying all the time, day and night. I never went out because I was trying to get her to stop crying. I only went out to steal formula and diapers for her. My Mom never did anything. I put two and two together a few years ago and found out the reason she wouldn't stop crying is because she was a crack baby." Suki grimaced.

Kyoko stared at her.

"Want to find out how I knew?"

Kyoko shrugged, but guessed she didn't have a choice.

"One of the girls we took was really pregnant. Tsubasa delivered the baby. The baby had the same weird mouth my sister had, and wouldn't stop crying the same way she had too. We tried really hard to save the baby. I was going to raise it myself, even. The baby died after five days anyways."

"Is that how your sister died too?" Kyoko asked out of morbid curiosity.

"No. I came home one day to see my mother shaking the baby. I guess the baby was too loud and she hadn't had a hit in a while, and it was too much for her. My sister was about a month old when that happened, I think. I don't really remember too well. She threw the baby in the dumpster."

Kyoko couldn't look at Suki at the moment. She looked over the see the crone, peering at them intensely with her fox eyes.

"Where was-"

"I hadn't met Tsubasa yet. I think he saved my life though."

"Huh, wait-"

"I'm three months older than him. We aren't twins. His father found me. My father apparently owed money to a loan shark, and had heard that my mother could be a candidate for trafficking. My father tried to sell both of us. They decided my mother was too ugly and I was way too young. My father, well Tsubasa's father and my adopted father, let me stay at his house that night because ours was freezing at the time.

"I found out later that he had planned on dropping me off at an orphanage or something the next day, but Tsubasa asked if they could keep me. Our mother had just given birth to a stillborn baby girl, and he wanted a sister. They decided to keep me instead, and the rest is history." Suki shrugged.

"So is your name-"

"I was given the identity of the baby girl: Miyamoto Suki. No one knows who I really am. It's why I help out on the ground. No one can really identify me, because Miyamoto Suki died as an infant. There is no living Miyamoto Suki on file anywhere. That was another part of why my father chose to adopt me; I could get under the system. He actually did love me though. He's…well, he's my Dad. They're my family."

"Wow." Kyoko said. She had thought Suki was on the ground because she was a sadistic bitch.

"I guess that's why I have a soft spot for you and really want you to join." She smirked at Kyoko.

Kyoko was confused.

"Huh?"

"Kyoko, you said something the other night that really stuck with me. You asked why we don't just kill them, and instead sentence them a life of sexual slavery or something like that. I really, really agree with you. I don't like what I do, you know. Having been a prostitute for two years, I really don't like it." Kyoko noticed the woman rub her arms, as if she were embracing herself and trying to keep warm.

"These people…these addicts have no value, really. They're just shells. I heard someone say once that my birth mother was actually a lovely, smart, kind-hearted lady who was really good at English and wanted to move to London when she was older. I never knew that side of her. I only remember the addiction, and I hate her for it. Same for my birth father, who was apparently a really talented artist. I only remember the addiction and I hate him."

Kyoko looked at her uncertainly.

"They're just shells, and the people we target will never be anything else. They're too far gone. But a lot of them have good hearts."

Kyoko thought of Blue and Rin, and nodded in agreement.

"In the American black market, a good heart can go for 6,000,000 yen, according to James."

Kyoko felt her stomach drop and the urge to vomit rise.

"That wasn't what I thought you meant."

"That doesn't matter. Right now, we can only get a small minority of the hopeless addicts because they have to still be at least moderately attractive. Not anymore. It's amazing how much your body can really be worth, if you sell something more than just your pussy."

Kyoko was speechless. She wanted to argue, but she wasn't sure how.

"Kyoko, I want you to think of the addicts we would be taking those organs from, and the people who would be getting them. There are thousands, hell probably millions of people who die every year waiting for a transplant, right? These are people with families who love them, good jobs, and communities that they benefit. The people we would be taking from will probably overdose in a few months anyways. We can just give them a quick, painless death and save someone else in the process."

Kyoko gaped at her. She tried to make a sound, tried to argue, tried to do _anything_ but couldn't.

_Didn't you let a girl become a grief seed to save yourself and Yuma? To feed you for another day?  
_

"I know it sounds like a lot, and you want to think it's evil. It's okay. But nothing's black and white."

Kyoko bit her lip. She knew that.

"That's why I want you to join us. Not as an employee, but an equal partner. There would be four of us: I would get the addicts. Tsubasa would do the harvesting. James would export the parts. And you…" Suki looked over at Kyoko, allowing her to figure out what her role would be.

"I would hide the bodies." Kyoko realized with dread. That's why the Miyamotos wanted her.

She had no idea how to feel about this.

"We talked about it, and we'd be happy to give you a signing bonus. We have money, and we know you'll help us make it back quickly. If you needed money for something, anything at all…"

"600,000,000 yen." Kyoko said, reciting the number the contractor had given her. Suki whistled at the number.

"You know how to play hard ball. That's good. Consider it done." She held out her hand.

Kyoko looked over at her, unsure.

"How about this: for every one addict we kill, seven or eight more people will live. That's a pretty good trade-off, right?"

It hurt Kyoko that that struck a chord with her.

_For every magical girl that becomes a witch, you and Yuma get to live another week. You kill them a lot faster and then don't get to save nearly as many people. It's really cannibalistic, if you think about it. _

Kyoko swallowed. She looked around at the tall stacks of crates around her. She looked at Suki, who was looking at her expectantly.

"You can think about it if you want, but we won't give you the signing bonus. Consider that our incentive for you to join quickly."

"What about Kurosawa?" She blurted out. She felt like she was making up excuses at this point.

Suki chuckled.

"Don't worry about him. James can handle that."

Kyoko closed her eyes and reluctantly shook Suki's hand.

"Welcome aboard, Kyoko."

* * *

Sayaka listened to the sound of her heart beat. It was quick, shallow, and nervous. It wasn't a pleasant melody or rhythm at all.

"How are you doing in there Miki?" Ryo's voice whispered.

"Fine." She mumbled.

This time was easier. She didn't think about going out and scoring anything. She just wanted to leave.

She heard the door creak open and someone walked in.

She felt herself get turned over. Her eyelid was forced open. She saw a young man with strange, multi-coloured hair standing over her. He grinned at her and let the eye close. He pulled off her jacket, just like the old woman had done. The wire was in her jacket, and she was glad he didn't catch it either.

He checked her arm.

He made a tsking sound and left.

She stayed where she was.

"Miki, any updates?"

"Busy." She said, hoping they would stop asking. They should have come up with some kind of code word for 'it's happening'.

"It's happening." She muttered.

"Holy fuck. Okay, we're ready."

She stayed down. She lost track of time. She desperately wanted to check the time on her phone, just to know how long she had been waiting there.

She hated waiting for something bad to happen to her.

"Why are you so excited today?"

"You're going to love this, my friend. You're going to _love _this."

She heard a gasp. She heard rummaging around the room.

"It's empty. She's alone." She recognized that snivelling voice: Megumi.

She felt a large body descend over her. She also felt a growing erection against her thigh.

"I've been looking for you for so long, Blue." Atahiko whispered predatorily into her ear.

She supressed a shiver.

* * *

Kyoko listened to the sound of her heart beat. It was slow, steady, and foreboding.

Kind of felt like her future.

"So, you know my story. What's yours?"

"Who said I was going to tell you?" Kyoko challenged, but there was no bite to it.

She started to feel kind of sick. There was a pulling sensation inside of her, like her innards were being yanked out.

She could feel it.

It was a minor magic attack.

_Son of a bitch, not now._

"I just want to know who my new business partner really is. I'm curious is all." Suki shrugged.

"You know who I am."

"Do I?"

"Yeah. I'm Sakura Kyoko. You've known that for a long time."

Suki looked at her, studying her closely.

"I'm usually good at telling when people are lying, but I honestly can't tell that you're lying when I look at you."

"Because I'm not lying."

"No, seriously. What's your name?"

"Sakura Kyoko! Why do you think I'm lying?" Kyoko was getting pissed.

She felt herself falling out from the inside more quickly. Her magic was being pulled out faster.

"So where did you grow up Kyoko? What did your father do?"

"I grew up here and my father was a preacher. Are you trying to get some more information about how he was an alcoholic because fuck that." She snarled.

"You actually believe that…" She said quietly and disbelievingly. "You actually believe you're her…"

"Yeah, who the fuck else would I be? Why the hell are you asking me like that?"

Kyoko's head started to pound as she drained quicker and quicker. She had to clutch at her chest with one hand and her head at another. She thought she might pass out. It was getting worse.

Suki seemed to snap back into reality and shook her head.

"Sorry, sorry for being a pain. Alright Kyoko. I'm glad to have you on the team." She bowed politely.

"No, seriously, why the hell are you asking me that?"

"She's a pretty one, don't you think? She'll turn good money. She's a good one." The crone said, grabbing a hold of Kyoko's arm and showing her off like a prize. She had clearly grown impatient with the younger women's conversation.

Kyoko didn't mind. She breathed deeply and slowly. She wasn't draining as quickly now.

"Wha-you brought _her _as an option? Does she look like she's high to you? What the hell is wrong with you?!" Suki screamed at the woman. "Here I thought you were just being _useful_ for once and actually _helping_ with something!"

"She's good! She's a good one! I can get a hit, right? Just one? She's good, she's so pretty. I deserve one, right? You owe me now." The woman's tone changed from seeking approval, to desperate, to demanding. Kyoko pried her arm away, not trusting the woman to not stab her again.

Kyoko guessed the crone didn't recognize her after all.

Suki stared at her for a few moments.

"Do you know who I am?" She asked the woman dangerously.

"You're an angel if I take you to Bethlehem." The woman said back in a rehearsed way. Kyoko looked at Suki, whose expression she couldn't read.

"Kyoko, I think we've discussed everything we need to discuss. Can you meet me upstairs in a few minutes?"

Kyoko stood her ground. She didn't like where any of this was going.

That, and she wasn't convinced she could move yet. She sort of stumbled as she tried to sit down. Suki looked at her with concern.

"Don't worry about it-" Kyoko began.

"Where's my fucking – " The crone launched herself at Suki.

Kyoko almost missed when Miyamoto pulled out a gun and shot the woman in the face. The sound, combined with the echo in the cement and metal room was deafening. In a second, the top half of the woman's head had been completely blown off; she was unrecognizable above her jawbone. Blood, bone, and brain was sprayed everywhere over the stacks of crates behind her, creating a rapidly growing puddle of pure red in front of them.

"Holy shit!" Kyoko yelled.

"Self defense." Suki shrugged, staring at the corpse.

"You killed her!" Kyoko kept yelling. _Oh dear god, I'm going to be working with this bitch!_

"Can you quiet down? The echo in here is bad enough without you screaming everything. Besides, I had to do this."

Kyoko looked at her incredulously.

She almost felt like she was going to faint, but even she could recognize that was the magic attack talking.

"She just attacked me, and she _hurt _you Kyoko. While you were working for me. Tsubasa and I agreed on that last week after the dinner. We never let anyone, staff or partner or contractor or whoever, get hurt on our watch. And if they do, there will be hell to pay. I'm paying her back is all."

Kyoko sat there.

"I'm sorry you had to see that. This is a reality of my role in our business. It's dirty. I don't like it any more than you do, but it has to be done."

Suki looked at the woman, and the growing mess she was making.

"We're not working together yet, so how much for you to clean this up?" She gestured to the corpse.

"How much are you willing to pay?" Kyoko asked, trying to sound calm.

"1,000,000 yen?"

"Meh. Fine."

"Great. Can you do it now, or is there some kind of secret method you have that will take time?"

"Secret method that will take time." She could feel a witch in the area, which wasn't uncommon. "Be out of here in an hour." She had to call Yuma anyways for an extra grief seed.

"Can do. Here." She passed Kyoko 1,000,000 yen in notes casually, like she always had that much cash and it was nothing. She could evidently tell that Kyoko was a bit scandalized by it.

"This'll be you in no time." She grinned.

Kyoko tried to smile back, but it came as more of a grimace. She stumbled away, hiding the grief seed that she put to her soul gem before she could finally breathe normally again.

* * *

This wasn't completely ideal, but it was something. Sayaka had been hoping that she would be able to get evidence on them before they could even touch her.

No such luck.

"Stay down, Miki. You're doing great." Ryo's voice whispered.

"Where's Suki?" Megumi asked, huffing a bit under Sayaka's weight as they went down the stairs. He was the one carrying her over his shoulder, which made no sense to Sayaka because Atahiko was clearly the bigger and stronger of the two.

Still, for god's sakes she wasn't _that _heavy.

Right?

"Last I checked, she was in the storage units in the basement. We're almost there."

Sayaka heard a lock click as it was being opened and felt a cool draft hit her ass while the smell of rotten food hit her nose.

_This fucking place. _

"Suki Suki, bo Buki. Banana Fana, fo Fuki. Mi Mai, Mo Muki. Suki!" Atahiko sang jovially. "Suuuuukiiiii!"

Sayaka could hear their footsteps echo through what sounded like a chamber.

"Now's not the best time guys." Suki said, from somewhere nearby, it sounded like.

It could have just been the echoes though.

"There you are! You won't believe who we- HOLY SHIT!" Atahiko screamed in a very effeminate voice.

"Wha- OH FUCK" Megumi yelled after.

Sayaka felt herself being dropped into something wet on the floor unceremoniously. The cement fucking hurt. She didn't open her eyes, but she wanted to so, so badly. _What the hell are they talking about?_

"Wha-Wait, is that _Sapphire_? You found _Sapphire_?" Suki asked disbelievingly. "Fucking shit, of all days to find Sapphire! And you DROPPED her in it! Oh that's disgusting!"

"What the fuck happened here?!" Atahiko yelled.

"Is that-" Megumi asked.

"Yeah, it's her. Go on, get her out of…that." Suki ordered.

Sayaka became distinctly aware of the way the liquid she was dropped in felt against her skin, and the way it was starting to make her clothes feel damp. The warm, moist feeling was spreading. _What the hell is this? _

"Holy fuck. Holy fuck this is too much. I can't do this. I don't think I'm cut out for this." Megumi's voice became more and more nasal. "Oh god, she's _covered._"

"Calm down, this isn't normal, trust me." Suki tried to reassure him. "Can one of you pick her up?"

"I can't touch her. I'll touch it. And then I'll puke." Atahiko promised.

"Oh god, don't puke because then I'll puke and it'll be gross." Suki sounded like she might get sick.

"Really? Really? Puke will make you sick but not this shit?"

"I don't think I'm cut out for this." Megumi repeated.

"Yes, yes you are! Atahiko's told me about you, you're great. This is a really, really bad day. Please, please can you move her?"

"I can't do this. I'm just going to stick with Kurosawa. I've never seen shit like that, I always had subordinates do things like this. I'm a drug distributor and sometimes dealer, not this. I can't do this."

_Holy fuck that's one! _

"We got it! Stay down Sayaka. We're coming in. Just stay down." Ryo whispered.

"Megumi, I know this seems deep. Seriously, I've been doing this whole scouting out and taking the chicks for years, but I've never seen anything like this. What happened with Orange-oh for fuck's sakes _Topaz _I get it, _Topaz_!" He snapped.

"I didn't say anything." Suki said in a placating manner.

"Anyways, when we got that girl Topaz last week, that was way more normal. Usually this is a clean, quick, 'grab and go' sort of thing. I've never seen this before. The 'kidnapping' or whatever the fuck you want to call it is painless."

_Two! That's two! _

"I don't think I can touch her." Megumi said. He sounded nauseous.

"I can't either." Atahiko insisted. "Suki, it's up to you. Your brother's a doctor, you've seen this kind of stuff before."

"Well, not like that!" Suki objected.

_Oh god, what is this? What is this? WHAT IS THIS?!_

Sayaka was starting to feel sticky. She wanted to move. She wanted to wipe herself off.

The smell of rotting food and something horrifically familiar invaded her olfactory senses. _It's so familiar but what is it? _

"I know the crone was a useless shit, but holy fuck, what did you do?!"

"She hurt one of my staff. I couldn't let her get away with that. So I shot her." Suki said like it was nothing.

Sayaka kept her eyes closed, and kept her face neutral, but she wanted to grin and jump up and shout with glee.

_Three! That's three! _

And then something dawned on her.

_What the fuck am I lying down in? Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no._

"Do they normally explode that much?"

_Oh god no!_

"It's a new American bullet that James gave me. It apparently explodes on impact. It's meant for hunting, but it works in regular pistols too. I guess at close range it's just really….kablowy." She finished lamely.

_Oh dear god, I'm lying down in blood?!_

She wanted to throw up. She wanted to scratch all of the wet parts off her skin. It itched. It was starting to itch.

Oh god, she was so _itchy _and _wet_.

"You made the mess. You move her."

"Aren't you the one who wants to fuck her? The one who gets to fuck her gets to move her."

"You know what? I've wanted to rape this bitch for years after the shit her boyfriend pulled with that fucking knife of his, but I'm willing to let it go. So that means, the one who makes the mess gets to move her. She's all yours."

_What?_

"Oh, so a bit of blood freaks you out? Poor girls must be pretty disappointed one week a month."

"I can handle period blood, okay? This is not fucking period blood! This is-"

"Kazamino Police! Put your hands in the air!" She heard Ryo shout. Sayaka jumped up, her hands making a sort of splashing sound in the red puddle and she used them to push herself up as quickly as possible and hopped backwards, yanking her gun out of her jacket and pointing it at them by the time she landed.

She looked down, and her face paled considerably.

_Oh god I was right. _

She saw what looked like a woman who was missing the top half of her head.

She looked around her. The three criminals were surrounded; two large, heavy rows of crates on two sides with four cops blocking the exits on each side, all holding guns.

Everyone was looking at her though.

She kept her gun pointed at the criminals, but looked at the palm of her left hand.

It was red.

She looked the fur on her hood.

It was stained red.

She used the back of her hand to wipe the side of her face.

It was wet with red and…

A soft, mushy piece of pink was pulled loose from her hair. A thicker part of the end covered in dark red veins spun as it was suspended in midair.

She may have skipped most of her dissection classes in junior year biology, but she could recognize a brain…or a piece of brain when she saw it.

She started to dry-heave.

"Oh fuck, please don't puke." Ayumi pleaded.

"Hold it together Miki." Ryo commanded softly.

He began the official tirade all officers had to do while arresting someone. He made sure to proudly inform them, with a malicious shit-eating smirk, that they had everything recorded as evidence against them.

"I will go peacefully, officer." Suki said, oddly loudly.

Everyone else dismissed it as eccentric behaviour and pulled them away.

Sayaka somehow knew it was meant to be something more, but in the meantime all she wanted to do was the clean up and get the _blood and brain off her face_.

"Great, great, _great _work today Miki. I'm proud of you. You were the star of this operation. Now if you can get the Kurosawas, or the location of Kurosawa base, you'll officially be a better cop than I ever was."

"Thanks sir. Can I go have a shower _please_?" She begged.

"Ah, not yet, I'm afraid." He looked apologetic. "We have some forensics guys coming over in a bit. You'll have to go with them. You're kind of covered in evidence."

Sayaka felt like she was going to cry or puke or do both.

"Just stay strong for a bit longer."

Sayaka was so focused on keeping herself together that she didn't notice a red-haired coworker of hers sprint down the alley from the building.

* * *

This hadn't been ideal at all, but it had been something.

Kyoko had her way to pay off the renovations.

She had her way to save the church.

Miyamoto Suki had offered her everything she needed.

And then promptly got arrested five minutes later, likely blowing up the entire operation.

"Son of a bitch. Son of a motherfucking bitch!" She cursed to herself, punching a brick wall. She made a dent in it, but she also made a dent in her hand. "Fuck!" She screamed loudly.

She'd tried to get out quickly, but the magic attack had taken a bit out of her. She figured just sitting down for a few minutes to rest and recuperate wouldn't be too much. The witch wasn't moving very quickly, after all. She didn't pay attention to the distorted echoed yells she heard in the distance.

Then she heard the shouting that everyone was under arrest, and gloats that they had confessions on tape. She immediately put up a barrier to hide herself, which worked because the cops passed right by her as they did a quick check of the rest of the dark storage unit.

She ran out as soon as she could.

She only heard Suki's odd shout of "I will go peacefully, officer."

She got out her Miyamoto phone, wondering if she should destroy it and throw it out right away or after.

She checked the numbers she had received calls from. There were three of them.

Two of them, she had received a number of calls from over the last week; Suki and Atahiko. The third was from a few weeks ago: when the Miyamotos first did their favour for her.

They either threw out that phone, or that was someone else's phone.

If it was someone else's phone…she only had one guess as to whose it could be.

Kyoko held her breath and dialled the number, wondering what would happen.

"How can I help you, Kyoko?" Tsubasa asked pleasantly.

"Are you alone?"

"Yes. What happened?"

"Is your phone secure?"

"Positive. What happened Kyoko?" He asked more seriously and impatiently this time.

"Suki, Megumi, and Atahiko have been arrested."

There was a brief pause.

"How strong is the evidence against Suki and Atahiko?"

"I heard something about confessions caught on tape. Suki was also standing over the body of a woman she had just murdered."

There was silence.

"Did you hear Suki say anything, by any chance? Anything at all after she got arrested?"

"She said something about agreeing to go peacefully."

"Oh goddammit this is bad." He exhaled deeply. "Thank you Kyoko. Destroy your phone immediately. I will not contact you anytime soon. We'll work this out. And out of curiosity, did you agree to anything with Suki?"

"As a partner? Yeah, I did. Is that still on?"

"Yes! Yes, it is. Just, consider it a bit postponed. We'll figure it out. I'm happy to work with you. I apologize you had to come into this. I will look after it, don't worry. Thank you. Have a great day."

The line disconnected and Kyoko snapped the phone in two.

Her Kurosawa phone buzzed. She got a text.

'You're needed at 'Club TK' tomorrow night after Tomi's.'

She looked up at the sky. Dark grey storm clouds were rolling in.

It was going to rain.

At least it fit her current mood.

* * *

Sayaka was thankful. The forensics guys were incredibly understanding and made the evidence gathering from her their first priority. She was able to get cleaned off within half an hour.

It was still half an hour too long for her liking, but hey, it could have been a lot worse.

She wanted to go home and just sleep. She was exhausted.

But alas, the operation had finished early enough that when she was dropped off by Ryo, her parents were outside her apartment building.

"Hey Fuzz! We knew you were working tonight, but we wanted to see if you were back early enough for session tonight." Her father said kindly, but there was a hint of strain.

"It would be great to have you there sweet pea. You look very tired; how was your day?" Her mother's voice was very strained and concerned.

"Uh, yeah." She rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. "It was a long day. I'd rather just go to bed."

"Are you sure? Makato-chan was on dessert duty today, and I heard she's bringing those delightful butter treats you love." Her mother tried to coax.

Sayaka knew a losing battle with them when she saw it.

"Yeah, alright let's go."

She thought she had just blinked, but when she opened her eyes they were already there. She must have fallen asleep. Her parents didn't comment on it.

The butter treats were as delicious as she remembered them, but her stomach protested to her filling it up with anything at all.

The group announcements went by uneventfully. Her mother provided an update on how addictions awareness month had gone. Sayaka had showed up to a few events, like a fun run and some speaker sessions, one of which she spoke at as a success story. Most of the event attendees were sitting in this current room.

Sayaka decided against going up to speak about her progress.

Or rather, her stomach decided against going up to speak about her progress.

She tried not to groan when they had to move their chairs into a circle.

Her tongue was going numb. Her stomach was in knots and sinking.

Her skin was cold, but she was starting to sweat.

Her skin felt wet.

She felt wet like she just a few hours ago.

She looked up to see Tatsuya's sister looking at her perplexedly.

The younger girl blew a bubble with her gum; a big, soft-looking pink bubble.

That pink reminded her so much of pink she had pulled out of her hair earlier that day.

When it popped, it was like all of the substance of it had disappeared.

The girl pulled the pinkness back into her mouth with her tongue.

Sayaka finally vomited.

* * *

Kyoko was resentful. She would be the first to admit that so much of the shit that happened to her was her fault.

It was her fault she made a wish without talking to her parents, particularly her father first.

It was her fault she ignored the warning signs of his mental breakdown.

It was her fault she lost control of her magic.

It was her fault she let the church fall into such a sorry state of disrepair.

It was her fault she was getting so tied up with some of the worst criminals in Japan.

But it _wasn't_ her goddamn fault that right after she found a solution to one of her most pressing problems, Miyamoto Suki or whoever the fuck she is had to go and get fucking _arrested. _

"_You actually believe that you're her." _

The only thing that pissed her off more than her solution being postponed was that she didn't understand what the _fuck _that was supposed to mean.

Her mind drifted back to distorted voices speaking in the kitchen of her former home.

She supposed part of her wanted to look into it.

As she looked at her soul gem, she noticed it was getting darker. She was about to have another magic attack.

She stopped thinking and focused on conserving her magic. It worked. The corruption stopped seeping in.

Her personal phone rang. She sighed.

"Hey Yuma." She said tiredly.

"Hey, I sensed a witch nearby. Want to come hunt it with me?"

Nearby for Yuma was still forty minutes away for Kyoko.

"Sounds great. Keep an eye on it, will you? I'm not very close by. I'll be there in about half an hour." She was about to hang up, but thought better of it. "And for the love of God, do _not _even _think _about going after it on your own or you'll have a lot more than that witch to be afraid of!"

Then she hung up.

She was resentful and she was fucked.

* * *

The drive home was painful. Both physically and socially.

She curled around her stomach, which was still digesting itself and threatening to expel the little water she tried to put in there.

"What was that, in there? What the hell was that?" Her mother started from the passenger seat.

"Fumiko…" Her father warned.

"No, I mean it. What was that? Are you sick? If you were sick, you could have just said something. For god's sakes, do you know how embarrassing it is to look like we are forcing our adult daughter to these sessions when she's _sick_? Jesus Christ, why didn't you just tell us you were sick when we came to get you?!"

Sayaka was too tired to fight back, which was probably a good thing. She would have given them a real verbal thrashing if she were up for it.

"What happened to you at work today, Sayaka." Her father demanded an answer; it wasn't even a question.

"Nothing you need to know about." She groaned.

"Yeah, actually I think we do. Karana-san told us she saw you in the Old Industrial District last week and you looked high out of your mind! She insisted you actually weren't and that it was undercover makeup or something like that, but what the hell were you doing there?!" Her mother snapped.

_Fucking Karana-san. _

"How long have you known about that?" Sayaka asked pitifully.

"Since last Friday."

One day. She kept it a secret for one day.

_Figures. _

"I'm surprised you weren't jumping down my throat earlier." Sayaka admitted. Her stomach twisted. She curled up. She didn't want to argue but her parents weren't giving her much of a choice.

"It was obvious you didn't want to talk about it and were just going to lie about it anyways." Her father shrugged, focusing on the drive.

She noticed that her hands were holding the steering wheel so tightly that his fingers were going white.

Her parents were _pissed. _

"Sayaka, I've been thinking about you a lot recently. You've been so distant." Her father began. "It's hard for us to see you putting yourself through all of this."

"You know you're always going to be our little hero. But you know, there are lots of ways to be a hero besides being a cop…" Her mother said.

_Oh shit no. _

"Things have been going well at the office. I've been thinking that we need to hire an actual admin person. What do you say, Sayaka? I know you'd be great at it!" Her father's tone was encouraging, but her body language was so tense and angry.

"Making sure companies are doing their books correctly is important too! You're helping make sure that all of the employees are being paid what they deserve, and no one takes too much." Her mother went on.

"Thanks, but no thanks. I love my job." It sounded hollow to her, saying that.

"Would you think about changing career paths? It seems so dangerous now, Sayaka." Her mother pleaded.

"You want to know what I did today? Huh? Well get this: I got one of Japan's worst human traffickers behind bars. That's what I did today. Ryo said I was the star of the mission; they couldn't have done it without me. And they _needed _me _because _I formerly lived in that freaking district; I actually _know _it and know how it works, so it's not painfully obvious that I'm a cop! I also got a kidnapper and a drug distributor behind bars. That was what I did _today_. So tell me: would I _ever _be able to do that much in any other field? Huh? No!"

She was breathing hard.

"I'll never be worth even half as much anywhere else."

She was about to throw up again.

"Pull over. Pull over. Please pull over." She mewled.

"Not in the car, not in the car!" Her father panicked.

They pulled over just in time for her to throw up on the side of the road.

She and her parents didn't speak for the rest of the night.

* * *

The walk home was painful. Kyoko was worried about her magic depleting on her.

It hadn't drained since she started walking, but she was paranoid it would happen again at any time.

It was terrifying to think that death could come to take her away at any minute.

"Kyoko!" Yuma waved to her cheerfully.

It was a false, overcompensating cheer. Kyoko could recognize it from a mile away.

It made her feel so pathetic.

"Where's the witch?" Kyoko couldn't even sense it.

"Well, it got away." Yuma looked away uncertainly. "But it's okay! Why don't we just go get some food instead?"

"What? How did it get away? The only witch I've ever seen move that fast was the race car witch. It shouldn't have moved so far away that it's beyond our range within an hour."

Yuma's brows furrowed.

Kyoko looked at her phone.

Three hours. It had taken her three hours to walk here.

"Oh shit. Were you waiting here this whole time?"

"It's okay, I don't mind." Yuma insisted. "Let's go get some food! It's fine."

"Stop trying to protect my damn pride, it's nothing worth protecting." Kyoko snapped. "You should have just gone back inside. It's chilly out. I don't want you wasting your magic on not getting a cold."

"I wanted to wait for you." Yuma shrugged.

"Yeah, well don't next time. I guess I'm not as fast as I used to be."

Yuma looked at her. Yuma looked like she was on the verge of tears.

"Don't be like that." Kyoko threw an arm around her sister's shoulders. "We'll work it out. I'll find out why my magic is going crazy, we'll fix it, and we'll be fine. This is just a weird bump in the road."

Yuma sniffled but nodded. Kyoko knew the girl didn't believe her.

Kyoko didn't even believe herself.

_What the hell have I done to us? _

* * *

The sound of a heavy bass echoed around her, along with the cheers of dozens of people she had never met.

Her work friends had brought her to Club TK, one of the best nightclubs in Kazamino to celebrate the success of their operation from the night before.

Going to this club after a shift at Tomi's had been painful; she really just wanted to sleep. And she really didn't want to drink or smoke.

In short, she felt like a total buzzkill.

When she got to the office that day, there had been a very tasteless cake on her desk that said "Thanks for lying in brains to catch the bad guys!" with a crude drawing of a stick figured with blue hair lying down in a red icing puddle.

She smiled, but didn't eat any of the cake with them. She lied and said Tomi was saying she was getting too fat and had to lose some weight to keep her job.

From what she had heard, the evidence against the three was so hard there was no way they would be able to get away without jail time.

They might be able to reduce their sentences if they testified against the Miyamotos, James, or the Kurosawas though.

Sayaka had no part with the questioning though, so she didn't know how that was going to go.

"Come onnnn, just have one drink!" Ayumi insisted, pushing some blue fizzy drink at her.

"I really, really don't feel like it. Thanks though." Sayaka tried to smile.

She just wanted to go home.

"Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink!" The group of ten colleagues and Ryo cheered while pounded on their table.

"Come on, just one and we'll stop bugging you." Ayumi slid the drink in front of her again. Sayaka sighed and rolled her eyes, throwing back the drink as quickly as she could. Everyone was appeased and cheered.

Another blue drink appeared in front of her. "Again!" They shouted.

"Last one!" She scolded, throwing it back.

She really didn't feel like drinking. They didn't accept her conditions and she had to drink another two.

"Let's go dancing!" Ayumi slurred drunkenly. Sayaka had been on the pole for almost an hour straight and her legs felt like jelly, but she figured she wasn't going to win this one.

This night was supposed to celebrate her, after all.

After forty-five minutes of grinding with what felt like a hundred strangers, and being groped by at least ten of them, she had to go to the bathroom. The buzz had started to hit her hard while they were dancing. She stumbled through the crowd.

She planned on sneaking out after and just sending a text to Ayumi saying she was tired. It was already three a.m. after all.

Well, that was until she saw who was in the surprisingly uncrowded blacklit room.

"Kyoko?"

* * *

The sound of a heavy bass echoed around her, along with the cheers of dozens of people she had never met.

Kyoko was standing guard outside of a door. Downstairs, Kurosawa was taking part in a high stakes gambling tournament.

She wanted to leave. She was tired.

But she had a fucking 'job', apparently.

At a bit before three a.m., she was told she could take a break. She needed to take a piss, so she gladly accepted the offer.

The bathroom was tacky. It had a black light, so bits of white on her shirt glowed.

She couldn't see what everyone loved so much about this place. It seemed so cliché.

"Kyoko?"

She whipped her head around to see Blue standing there, looking at her surprised.

"Hey Blue." She greeted, frankly unhappy to see her there. Kyoko knew there were tons of drugs floating around here. _This is probably why the dumbass has been relapsing. _

"Ah, I'm sorry if I interrupted you." Blue apparently had caught on to her displeasure in seeing her. Kyoko sighed in aggravation.

"It's not that. I just don't think this is a good place for you to be." She shrugged, not wanting to seem like she cared too much. The girl probably didn't even remember last Thursday, so even this was probably weird for her.

"Yeah, I don't think so either. Too much drinking and pot. Not really into that." Sayaka said, looking in the mirror and pretending to fix her hair, similar to Kyoko's strategy.

"So what is your thing?" Kyoko already knew.

"Now? Nothing actually. I don't know. I…" The girl looked down, as if thinking about something. "I had a weird dream about you last week. I used to have problems with certain…substances I guess. I messed up last week and had a dream that helped me. You saved my life in that dream. And since then, I just haven't wanted to do any of that."

Kyoko was surprised. She decided not to say anything to confirm that it had actually happened.

"Dreaming about a girl you've only met a few times? I know I'm hot, but damn I didn't know I was that good." Kyoko joked, trying to make the conversation a bit more light-hearted.

Blue punched her playfully. "Get over yourself. I'm the pretty one."

"Oh bullshit." Kyoko grinned. "Look at my long, flowing locks."

When Kyoko looked at Blue more closely, she realized there was something she really liked about her hair.

"Bah! Yours probably gets all tangled and messy. Mine" She tussled her hair. "Is nice, smooth, and tangle-free! Seriously, isn't yours a pain to manage? I can't even imagine having hair half that long!"

"I think it's okay…" Kyoko started to feel a bit self-conscious. Her family had been poor, so they could never focus much on hair hygiene. She had better things to worry about than that after, so she wasn't really sure if she had nice hair or not. Maybe Blue's felt nice and silky while hers felt like straw.

Blue's looked nice and silky.

"Can I?" The girl looked at her uncertainly, hand outreached.

"Uh, sure?" Kyoko wasn't sure what the girl was doing.

And then there were fingers running through her hair.

They didn't seem to get caught in any tangles, but she could feel her hair being gently pulled down. Something felt familiar and nice about it.

But the stirring in her lower core wasn't so familiar with this sensation.

"Oh my god, that is _not _fair! You got all of the good hair genetics. You should share it with the rest of us! Seriously, what shampoo and conditioner do you use?" The girl kept stroking her hair.

"Uh…" Kyoko stammered. She could feel her face heating up a bit. "I think it's Head and Shoulders or something like that?"

"Ugh! You can use cheap stuff and still have nice hair! I need to borrow my rich friend's stuff from the salon once in a while to fix this mess." She withdrew her hand and pointed to her own head.

"It looks nice to me." Kyoko said honestly, then looked away embarrassed.

"Really? Well, thanks. Most people say it's too short or weird because it's well…blue."

"It suits you though. You kind of have a whole blue theme going on."

"You've got a red one; that colour really suits you." She smiled.

"I guess, but I don't know." Kyoko shrugged, looking away. She wondered why they were even talking like this at all.

"Well, red is passionate and vibrant. It's just so bright and beautiful! I guess it's just…really you. You're red. I mean, well, you're passionate and vibrant, and bright and beautiful…"The girl sounded like she felt awkward. "I don't know where I was going with that, I'm drunk. I didn't want to drink, but my friends made me. I'm sorry you had to hear that." She groaned and buried her face in her hands.

Kyoko looked at the girl.

Then Kyoko laughed.

"Oh fuck off!" She smacked her. Kyoko laughed harder.

She could hear the girl's stomach growl.

"Are you hungry? Here." She passed the girl some pocky.

"Seriously, where are you hiding that?" The girl asked, confused. It sounded like she had wondered that for a long time. Suddenly, a flash of panic or something crossed her face.

The girl seemed odd, but then again she had always seemed odd.

"I'm not hiding it. I'm just carrying it around. I hate being hungry, so if I have a snack, I don't have to worry about being hungry and not being able to eat." She shrugged.

"Makes sense. I don't like being hungry either. Thanks!" The girl took some pocky munched on it happily. She was cute when she was eating.

The girl looked at her.

"Stop looking at me when I'm eating!" She complained.

"Not my fault you're cute when you're eating." Kyoko shrugged and grinned.

"You think I'm cute?" Kyoko felt her face heating up again.

"Well you think I'm beautiful so there we go."

They both laughed awkwardly and smiled at each other.

"I…well I don't know what happened last week." The girl looked like she felt uncomfortable saying that. "But thank you, anyways." She looked genuinely grateful.

Kyoko could feel a bit of pride swelling up inside of her. She had always loved feeling like a protector of justice. She hadn't felt like that in so long.

Maybe it wasn't a bad thing the deal with the Miyamotos was going to fall through, after all.

"Can I do something weird? Just because I'm drunk." Blue clarified.

"Go for it." Kyoko shrugged, smiling at her.

Sayaka kissed her on the cheek.

"What was that?" Kyoko asked, genuinely surprised. She was worried her face was as red as her hair.

"I thought I read somewhere that girls were supposed to kiss their heroes on the cheek or something like that. Shut up. I told you, I'm drunk." She batted at Kyoko with her hand sloppily.

"Yeah, how drunk are you? I feel like I'm taking advantage of you or something."

"Well, we aren't sleeping together so I don't think you can be taking that much advantage of me. And you're giving me food, instead of taking it from me so you're just being an awesome person. And I had four drinks in a five minute timeframe so…I'm happily buzzed. But no more! No more drinks. I don't need them."

"You're right. You don't."

"And I don't need drugs either."

"You really don't need those."

The girl smiled at her.

"Really. Thank you."

Kyoko could tell the girl knew more than she was letting off. She didn't mind.

It felt nice to be appreciated.

"No problem."

She gave the girl an awkward half-hug, but it felt comfortable.

"Does this feel right to you, somehow?" The girl asked, speaking as if she was pondering the meaning of the universe.

"Yeah. It does." Kyoko said, genuinely surprised. It did feel right.

They leaned against the counters, essentially cuddling in the middle of the filthy neon bathroom.

"Why do you call me Blue?"

"Because I don't remember your name."

"Oh. It's Sayaka."

"Sayaka?" The name really rolled off her tongue, easily. Like she'd said it a hundred times before.

"Yeah, like that." The girl looked like she was about to doze off.

Her Kurosawa phone buzzed. There was a text asking her where the hell she was.

She had been in the bathroom for thirty minutes.

"Ah shit, I really need to go. It was nice seeing you though, Sayaka." Kyoko said, genuinely meaning it.

"Yeah, it was great seeing you too. Maybe I'll see you around?"

"Yeah, maybe." She doubted they would.

"Hey, what's your number? Maybe we can hang out sometime?" Sayaka suggested.

It did sound nice.

"Trust me. You don't want to do that."

"Oh you're not _that _much of a bitch." Sayaka joked.

"Fuck off." She said, giving the girl the finger. "But no, things haven't been going too well for me lately. You don't need to get involved with any of that."

"Are you okay? Is there anything I can help you with?" The girl perked up eagerly. She reminded her of Yuma.

Something about the comparison grossed Kyoko out, and she wasn't sure why.

"No, no, it's fine." _Not really. _"But yeah, this isn't the best time. We seem to run into each other a lot, so maybe we can later."

"Yeah that sounds great! What's your number? If you ever need a distraction, we can go get food or something. You know, if you like…food." The girl was kind of a dweeb. It was adorable.

"Fine, fine." She recited her personal number for the girl. "You owe me good ramen!" She shouted as she headed out the door.

"You've got it!" The girl grinned back.

Kyoko smiled.

She was actually kind of excited. It would be nice to have a non-magical girl friend outside of work her age.

It would be nice to have a friend outside of work besides her sister.

* * *

Sayaka didn't want to acknowledge the giddy feeling in her chest the next time she saw Kyoko at the club. Besides, Kyoko didn't even recognize her with her hair and contacts. She barely even recognized herself.

She was hoping that Kyoko would seem happier today. She wasn't sure why. She just hoped she would.

She felt happier since their talk. She really did like Kyoko. She was a nice person.

Kyoko looked tired and stressed though. She looked like she barely slept over the last few days. Sayaka wondered if she had.

She figured commenting on it as Rin wouldn't make her feel any better.

They got ready in silence and headed upstairs to room B, which Sayaka now knew as 'their room'.

Something about the thought of doing a show with Kyoko tonight…Kyoko who called the real her 'cute' made her stomach feel full of butterflies. She blushed lightly, and hoped no one could notice.

It didn't take her long to see there would be no show.

It looked like there would be no clients tonight either.

"This is a disaster! This is a fucking disaster! And what the fuck was Megumi doing with Miyamoto and Atahiko?!" Kurosawa was screaming. It wasn't clear who he was screaming at, but he was upset.

"Sir, I don't know. I just know that-"

"Well find out! Fuck. FUCK!"

"While this club is secure, maybe this isn't the best place to do this." James suggested.

"You're right. You're right. Come on. We're going to my home. We can call whoever we need to call there." Kurosawa suggested.

"Kyoko, you're coming." He said to her as he walked by them.

"I have a shift, Yuta-samaaaa." She drawled out lazily or tiredly.

"I don't give a fuck. Do your shift at my place. Come on."

Sayaka wondered why Kyoko would be invited for what was clearly an emergency meeting.

"I need a fucking massage, badly." He said, pulling at his thinning hair.

_Oh. That's why._

"Father, if I may…" Fusao, who had been as silent as a mouse started to speak up.

"If I let you bring your slut to bring you busy, can you keep yourself scarce? I don't need your smart ass comments right now." He growled out.

Fusao seemed surprised, but nodded.

"Would you like to come?"

Sayaka looked at Kyoko, who didn't look like she was paying attention to anything. She just looked ready for bed.

She could get to the Kurosawa base.

She could be a better cop than Ryo ever was.

But she was going in without back-up and no one knew she was going.

Her parents' concerns that she wasn't safe flashed across her mind.

But she was always undercover here and she never had back-up. How would this be any different?

It would be completely different; who the fuck was she kidding?

"Rin?"

"Of course, Fusao-kun." She smiled politely. She could back out on the way over if she wanted to, right?

"We need to go, _now_." Kurosawa seethed.

Kyoko and Sayaka were allowed to quickly get changed into more comfortable clothes. She was surprised and unsurprised that Tomi had let them go. In fact, Tomi was coming with them.

She tried to memorize all of twists and turns they were taking, the landmarks they were passing. She held Fusao's hand the entire time; he had grabbed hers somewhere near the beginning of the ride, and she felt like she would seem more in character if she went along with it. 'Rin' was kind of spineless.

They reached some pretty ugly square buildings in the New Industrial District. She recognized this area; there were a number of manufacturing plants around here.

They pulled up beside an inconspicuous looking brown building right in between a clothing manufacturing facility and a warehouse of some sort. She would have assumed this building was part of the warehouse.

When they entered, it was obviously not.

The interior was beautifully decorated and chique; it looked like the home of a very wealthy person. During the day, it was probably a very bright and open space. At night, it looked dark and a bit foreboding, even though the walls were a pale cream colour and the floors were a teak wood.

"Tomi, James, and Kyoko, with me. Fusao, do whatever you want with her." He dismissed them.

Sayaka and Fusao were left standing awkwardly in the front hall while they all left.

"So…" She started.

"Would you like a tour?" He offered politely.

"Uh, yes! That would be lovely, thank you." She bowed politely. _This is too perfect. _

He showed her an extravagant, modern kitchen.

He showed her a bathroom that was larger than her entire apartment and had a Jacuzzi and small indoor current pool it in. That just seemed ridiculous to her.

He showed her a games room, complete with a cards table, billiards, darts, and a bar. He offered to mix her a drink, which she courteously declined.

He showed her his bedroom, which had made her nervous at first. It was a dark room, full of rich red velvets and a darkly coloured wall which made it look smaller. They left quickly enough though.

He showed her his brother's room, which was larger and kind of messy. He explained that no one had even touched it since his brother passed away. Sayaka found it kind of sad, but nodded in understanding. She wondered if the Kaname family would have ever changed Madoka's room after she died.

He showed her the outside of his father's office, which was closed and soundproof.

They walked together down another hall.

"You have an amazing house." She looked around in awe, trying to memorize every detail. She noticed they had an impressive security system, including some cameras so sneaking it would be damn near impossible.

"You think so?"

"Yeah, it's beautiful."

"Not as beautiful as you." _Oh god what a cheesy line_.

She didn't have much time to dwell on it though. His lips were on hers and she was being pushed against the wall.

This was the first time she ever noticed how much taller than her he actually was. He was awkwardly hunched over to reach her lips.

She was about to push him off when she felt his hands reach under her ass to pull her up. She was pinned against the wall by his body. His weight was keeping her off the ground so it was easier for him to kiss her.

She could feel his stiff cock pushing almost directly into her. Her skirt was too short to provide any real barrier, and she was only wearing a thong that she hadn't taken off at the club.

"Fuck I've wanted this for so long." He panted.

She heard a click and realized he was taking off his belt buckle. Her body slid down the wall a bit when he pulled his hips back to pull down his pants a bit. She hoisted back up quickly enough and tasted his tongue in her mouth again.

Her mind was blank. She had no idea what to do. She was frozen.

He smiled against her lips and exhaled a sort of breathy chuckle.

"After the first night a met you, I started bringing this with me every single time, hoping to use it." He held up a condom. "Seeing what James and Lady got to do all the time, it made me so jealous." He kissed her again, nipping at her.

"I tried to get closer to you before, but _fuck _Kyoko was never willing to let me get close to you. Fuck, one time she even pulled me out and told me to lay off." Sayaka hadn't known that, actually. "Did you want me too? Did you want me as bad as I want you?" He asked huskily.

She couldn't move. She couldn't think of a strategy. She had hit a mental road block.

She didn't want to say anything negative, in case it blew her cover or got her killed. She'd heard stories about this family before.

For god's sakes, five officers were killed just a few weeks ago by them, and they couldn't find any bodies or any fucking _proof. _

And she didn't have a fucking _gun_.

What the _hell _had she been thinking when she agreed to come here?!

"Yeah. Yeah I did." She squeaked out.

_Just go along with it. Go along. Stay safe. Stay alive. Stay covered._

She felt two fingers go in dry. She wasn't wet at all.

Fusao noticed.

"What's wrong?" He breathed out, hurriedly pulling the condom on.

"Nothing. Nothing at all. I just need to get a bit more started up." She lied. She didn't want him to know she was absolutely terrified.

He kissed her again. "I'll fix that. Besides, the condom's lubricated."

She didn't have a chance to respond before he had pushed himself inside her to the hilt.

She felt like she was being stretched uncomfortably.

She felt stuffed.

She felt gross.

He started a slow pace. He was breathing very heavily, right into her ear. She could see over his shoulder. It was the first time she noticed there was a mirror across from them.

Her blonde wig shone unnaturally under the moonlight.

Her emerald eyes were too bright and looked like a feline's.

Her face looked so pale and painted on, like a china doll's.

She looked so fake.

She felt ugly.

"I like when women make noise." He prompted.

She swallowed, and made a mewling sound. It fit with how she was feeling. He liked it. He sped up. Her sounds were staccatoed with his thrusts.

He was in going in deep and hard.

"Louder." She complied.

She looked and sounded like one of those American porn stars.

She was so fake.

She was so weak.

She was so, so stupid.

She wasn't sure how long they were like that for: him grunting and pushing into her while she behaved like a bad actress.

She was a pathetic excuse for a cop.

He grunted louder, and thrust harder. He lost his rhythm.

He exhaled in relief, a sated smile spreading across his face.

She felt sick.

"That was so, so good." He smiled, kissing her again, gently this time. It felt even worse than his rough nips did.

"FUSAO! HURRY UP AND FINISH FUCKING YOUR SLUT AND GET IN HERE!" She heard Kurosawa yell from down the hall.

"Ah shit." He sounded pissed. "Sorry, I have to go." He hiked up his pants and refastened his belt. He pulled out his wallet.

"Here you go." He passed her 50,000 yen. He made a move to walk away and handed her another 3,000. "Cab fare too. Do you remember the way out?"

"Yeah." She said quietly.

"Okay. And really, thank you." He kissed her again. "I'm sorry, I feel like such an asshole, but-"

"FUSAO!"

"Yeah, him. I'll see you at the club. Fuck you're so pretty. I think I have a thing for blondes." He grinned at her. She forced a smile back.

He darted down the hall. She readjusted her underwear, picked up her bag, and hobbled outside.

Her vagina felt really sore. She hadn't had penetrative sex in a long time.

She knew she should snoop around, but she was too scared to. She didn't want to get caught, and she wasn't convinced she'd be able to run fast enough.

She politely and discretely left, memorizing the location of the giant house that was hidden in plain sight.

It was pouring outside. She could feel her makeup start to run down her face hideously.

Or maybe that was because she was crying?

She hadn't even noticed that she'd started sobbing.

The money in her hand felt so _sleazy_.

It dawned on her.

It was official. It was actually official.

She was officially a prostitute. She accepted cash for sex.

She sobbed louder. The rain was loud enough to drown the sounds out.

She found an alley and sat down by the dumpster. She felt like trash. She was pretty sure she looked like trash. She belonged there.

The wig was getting wet and heavy. The long blonde strands were sticking to her face.

"_I think I have a thing for blondes." _

She ripped off the wig and shook out her short blue hair. Her actual hair.

Her personal phone began to ring from inside her bag.

"No, no, no…" She cried. She didn't want it to be her parents. She was terrified it was her parents.

It was Hitomi instead.

"FUCK!" She screamed as she answered the phone. "What?!"

"Sayaka? Sayaka I'm sorry, but have you had a chance to speak with Kyousuke yet."

She had completely forgotten.

She was selfish. She was a prostitute. She was useless.

She was a half-useful cop and a completely useless friend.

And she just couldn't deal with this right now.

"No, no Hitomi I've been so, so stressed with work stuff. I just…I thought I had a terrible day last week but that was nothing, _nothing _compared to today. Please I just-" She was about to break down and tell her everything that I happened. "I just had-"

"Sayaka, please! I need you to talk to him! He sounded worse today! He even refused to come see me! He told me he's somewhere by the bridge over the highway, and I have no idea what he's doing there. I'm really worried about him. He sounded like he was thinking about committing suicide. He doesn't sound like himself at all, please can you check on him? Please?" Hitomi was crying.

"You check on him! He's your boyfriend!" She cried and screamed back to her.

"I can't! Please Sayaka, you're the only one who can, please!" She sounded ugly when she was desperate.

Sayaka dropped the phone away from her ear, and let out a pitiful silent scream. She couldn't tell what were rain drops and what were tears on her face. She was soaked though.

"Fine. Fine I'll go see him; only because the only person more pathetic than me is you." She hung up. She buried her face in her hands.

She hated her life.

No, her life was fine. She hated _herself_.

She brought all of this on herself.

It didn't matter if she needed drugs or not. She was always going to self-destruct.

At least now she knew what was responsible. It was just her.

* * *

Kyoko didn't want to acknowledge the feeling of impending doom lurking in her chest when she went into the club. She knew shit was going to hit the fan when Kurosawa found out about Miyamoto's, and particularly Megumi's situation. It was only a matter of time.

The man had a tendency to be unpredictable when he was angry. She knew they were alike in that way. She hated the feeling of walking on eggshells though.

Something told her that tonight would be the night he found out.

"This is a disaster! This is a fucking disaster! And what the fuck was Megumi doing with Miyamoto and Atahiko?!"

Yep, there it was.

She vaguely recognized that he was ordering her to go with him. Tomi was too. She was too tired to care. Between this, working at the club, working for the loan sharks, dealing with the contractor and _insisting _she was getting money, and hunting witches she was beat.

The threat of having another magic attack also hung over her head like a guillotine.

She only realized something was wrong when they were part-way to the Kurosawa mansion and noticed Rin cuddled up next to baby Kurosawa.

_Oh shit, why is she coming?! _

She was about to say something, but noticed that they were holding hands. She grimaced. She had warned the girl not to get feelings for the clients, but she guessed it couldn't be helped; Rin was too soft for her own good.

She figured that intervening wouldn't do any good. She couldn't tell a grown woman that she couldn't have what she wanted, especially when they weren't at the club.

She looked out the window and let her mind wander.

They arrived at the mansion and Kyoko went straight to the study; she knew the way. They all did.

Kurosawa's pet lawyer was waiting for them. He was buddies with most of the defense lawyers in town, and was able to get good dirt on a lot of the cases.

He also had a connection somewhere in one of the police forces that gave them confidential information.

He was also Kurosawa's highest paid staff member, according to rumours she had heard from Tomi.

"So what the hell is happening?" Kurosawa asked as he poured himself a glass of brandy. He had developed a taste for western alcohol since spending more time with James.

"It's bad. It's really bad. They got solid evidence on all three of them. Confessions on tape, I heard. I don't think there's any way a jury would be able to interpret what they said any differently."

"What did Megumi say?"

"He confessed to be a drug distributor and he mentioned your name in particular."

Kurosawa clasped his hands in a praying position and leaned in on them. He was thinking hard.

"That man is as filthy of a rat as he looks. I'll deal with him. Where is he, right now?"

"In holding at the Kazamino Police Station. They haven't transferred him to a prison yet."

"Okay. I know who to call. I'll have him dealt with."

"Good." The lawyer nodded.

"I don't give a fuck about the disfigured drunkard. What about Miyamoto? How have they got her?"

"Murder charges."

"Murder?" James was surprised.

"She killed a junkie. They found her covered in blood, holding a gun, and confessed to the murder. James, she'd mentioned your name."

"How?" James looked tense and serious. Kyoko had never seen the man like that before.

"She mentioned you gave her a special American bullet. Nothing too serious. You'll be fine. It's Kurosawa who needs to worry." James exhaled in relief. Kurosawa glared at the little American, who just shrugged back at him.

"How the hell did they get caught that red handed anyways? I thought Suki had mastered this. They had never had problems for years. They were so careful and had it down perfectly. What changed?"

The lawyer sighed.

"It was the ultimate unfortunate coincidence for them. As it turns out, one of the Kazamino cops was a former addict and target of the Miyamotos. They somehow found out this cop was one of the targets, used her as an undercover and went in for the kill."

Kyoko's eyes widened. There was only one cop she knew who was a former addict and target. Maybe there was another one?

"How did they find out? I thought the Miyamotos never had problems with rats." James was stunned.

"I don't know. There's a rat somewhere and they found out this cop was a target, so they used her as bait."

"Who was the cop?" Kyoko asked, not sure if she wanted to hear the answer.

"I don't know. I don't think that's the question we should be asking. She's young, from what I know, so probably just a rookie on parking duty."

It pissed her off that she was being treated like she was that stupid.

It pissed her off that she was probably played like a goddamn _fiddle. _

It had to be Sayaka. Sayaka was the only target who was a cop.

She could have stopped everything if she had _just _told them that one of the targets had been a fucking cop when they asked her if she knew her!

_That lying, fucking bitch!_

Kyoko was feeling angry.

_And I thought I saved her. _

She felt stupid.

_I thought we were actually going to be friends. _

She felt pathetic.

"What about Tsubasa? Tomi, have you heard anything about him?"

"Nothing at all. He wasn't arrested but I don't know what he's planning."

"I honestly wouldn't assume anything yet." James started. "Even if the Miyamotos did rat you out, which I doubt they would because they would have to confess guilt themselves, their crimes have much longer prison times than yours. They wouldn't have much to gain."

Kurosawa continued glaring, but nodded. "Keep an eye on the Miyamotos, would you?" He said to Tomi and the lawyer. They both agreed.

Kyoko wondered why she was even there.

Kurosawa and James had another drink each. Tomi fidgeted nervously. The lawyer looked solemn.

Though the room was soundproof, it wasn't perfect. They could all faintly hear Rin moaning. Kyoko rolled her eyes.

"Well at least they're having a good time." James said sullenly.

The moaning stopped. _Gross._

Kurosawa got up and marched to the door, slamming it open.

"FUSAO! HURRY UP AND FINISH FUCKING YOUR SLUT AND GET IN HERE!"

"Do you actually need him here?" James asked with no real curiosity.

"Not particularly, but it's more the principle of it."

"Did you really think they were going to do anything different?"

"No. But it's pissing me off that he's getting laid while I'm trying to strategize how to keep our family out of fucking prison. FUSAO!"

The young man looked ruffled but came in and sat dutifully, while they listened to Kurosawa bitch about the Miyamotos and how stupid they were. They also listened to Tomi and Kurosawa hypothesize on what Megumi was even doing with them.

Now Kyoko and baby Kurosawa could sit there together and wonder what they were even doing there.

They finished up quickly enough, thank god.

Everyone except for Kyoko was invited to the games room for drinks and billiards to get their mind off of this.

She went to see herself out, relieved to have an early night and chance to sleep.

"Kyoko, a word please." Kurosawa asked when they were alone.

Kyoko suspected the only reason she was brought along was for this moment. She walked over to him silently.

"Be on standby. I'm not sure, but I think we may have to do something about Tsubasa. I will keep you posted. You're the only one I trust to deal with him."

She narrowed her eyes.

"Some things you can't make me do."

"No, but I'll make it worth your while. I'll make it very worth your while."

"Threatening me again, are you?" She snapped.

"No, promising a great reward, Sakura. I do hope you don't misunderstand me. You're one of my best staff, by quite a ways. It's nice that no one thinks you're respectable, because then no one would try to steal you." He sneered. "Apparently, Megumi seemed too good and the Miyamotos tried to take him. Look how well that turned out."

He sighed in frustration, combing his hand through what was left of his hair.

"Just be on standby. Thank you."

Kyoko nodded and left.

She hated where all of this was going.

Finally, the torrential downpour the heavy clouds had been promising for days was here. She didn't bring Sayaka's umbrella with her. She regretted that.

She hadn't received a text from the girl yet. She wondered when she would. She was tempted to give that bitch a piece of her mind, but quickly realized that would be a terrible idea.

_She even made that fucking bullshit story about me saving her. And her seeing me in a dream. I can't believe I fell for that load of __bullshit__. _

She pretended it was just water dripping down her face, and not any tears.

_I barely knew her. Why am I letting that cunt affect me so badly?_

She heard sobs coming from the alleyway.

It sounded like Rin.

Kyoko sighed in exasperation. _Ah fuck. _

She had been right. Rin coming along was a bad idea.

She was about to comfort her until she saw her. She froze. She was stunned. She was speechless.

Sitting by the dumpster was Sayaka, with a sopping wet blond wig on the flooding ground that more resembled a drowning shih tzu than hair and iridescent, obviously _fake _green eyes.

Everything made sense now. Everything made so much fucking sense.

How had she missed it?

_They sounded the exact fucking same! I am such an idiot! _

Kyoko was ready to go over there and beat the living shit out of her.

Kyoko had basically had _sex _with her. No wonder Sayaka had kissed her; it didn't freak her out at all, they already had kissed and Kyoko was too stupid to have any idea!

Something about that made Kyoko feel violated and dirty.

This girl was crazy. She dressed as a stripper to talk to the most dangerous criminals in the city.

She had sex and got naked in front of the most dangerous criminals in the city. That was what cops did now? That was how dirty they were willing to play?

No, that girl was a _whore_.

A whore who _used_ her.

_And I wanted to be friends with her. _

Kyoko was definitely crying now. She hid herself behind the wall from Sayaka. This was so, so humiliating.

What would Tomi say when they found out she had missed something so obvious?

_Wait a minute. _

It _wasn't _obvious. The only one who had even come close to figuring something out was her. _She _was the only one who asked who the cop was. _She _was the only one who didn't dismiss Sayaka as being some kind of useless rookie.

She knew exactly what Sayaka was capable of.

Sayaka saw that she was target of one of the most dangerous human traffickers in Japan and she willingly went in as bait. Sayaka got Miyamoto, a professional kidnapper, and an expert drug dealer behind bars.

She had Kurosawa quivering in his boots.

And she knew where their base was.

Sayaka was _dangerous. _

And no one even _suspected _how low she was willing to go. No one even _suspected _she would have gone in via Tomi's.

This girl had no limits. She had no morals. She had no fucking self-respect.

She was just as terrifying as Kyoko.

It was only a matter of time before the Kurosawas would realize they had a rat, and a nasty one at that.

It was only a matter of time before she could _find _the rat and demand a huge payout. No one would suspect that a rat would go in that way, so she could say it was hard as hell to find her.

She wondered how much of the church she could pay for by handing Sayaka's head over to Kurosawa on a silver platter.

Kyoko didn't feel angry anymore. She felt _excited. _

She didn't care what her father said: there was something so satisfying in getting revenge.

She was never patient, but she would have to be.

That didn't mean she couldn't have any instant gratification though, right?

"Rin? Hey Rin, are you out here?" She called, pretending to be concerned.

She heard Sayaka gasp from around the corner then some rustling.

"Yeah, I'm over here!"

Kyoko rounded the corner. She wanted to laugh. It was obvious the wig had been thrown on the ground. It was disgusting and dirty. Sayaka's eyes were irritated and red, almost as red as her face.

_At least the cunt has the ability to be embarrassed. I wasn't sure if she even could feel shame._

"So. How was it?"

"Huh?" She blinked at her. Kyoko had never liked her eyes. Now she knew why.

"Fucking Kurosawa. How was it? Did you like it? It's what you wanted, right? Why else would you come here?"

Sayaka was struggling to find words. She was choking on them. Kyoko had to force herself not to smile mockingly.

"It was good." Sayaka swallowed nervously, before forcing a smile. "It was really good. I really like him, so I'm glad I came."

"Aww, that's cute." She said condescendingly. "Hey, out of curiosity, did he pay you for it? Or did you give the milk away for free?"

Sayaka stuttered, stunned.

"Well, yeah he paid me. But…"

"What else would he expect, right? I mean, he's had to pay you for everything else so it's fair to see where the misconception could come from." Kyoko shrugged. She heard Sayaka nod and squeak. She was trying not to cry.

_How cute. _She thought sardonically.

"One thing though, okay?"

Sayaka looked up at her confused.

Kyoko punched her in the face, as hard as she had punched Miyamoto Suki a few days before.

Sayaka was knocked into the dumpster, hitting her head against it. Had she not been wearing contacts, Kyoko was certain she would see Sayaka's eyes lose focus.

She grabbed her by the collar of her jacket and pulled her forward.

"Don't make us look like a brothel again." She sneered.

She threw Sayaka into a puddle and kicked her in the ribs for good measure. She saw Sayaka struggling to breathe after. She had knocked the wind out of her.

Kyoko mused about whether or not she had broken any of her ribs. She doubted it though; she didn't kick her that hard. And that wouldn't do her any good.

Oh, the fun she could have with her at the _club_.

She sauntered away, finally feeling like she had an ounce of strength.

She didn't really feel any better though.

She felt sad.

She ignored that last sentiment.

She didn't look back to see the girl get up, but she heard her groaning and struggling to move. She also heard slow, deliberate steps going in the other direction.

A part of Kyoko was desperate to go back and ask for forgiveness.

She squashed that part of her like a bug.

Kyoko decided to go home. She didn't want to look at Sayaka right now.

If she had, she might have noticed a familiar white creature follow the injured girl into the stormy night.

* * *

AN: Congratulations to all of you on reading a whopping 123 pages of story through chapters five and six! Hoo boy! Huge congratulations to all of you who actually read all of this in one weekend; wowza!

I was so convinced I would be able to make this one shorter, but believe it or not, I got carried away again. I decided to split this up just so it would be easier to scroll through. The plot's going to be moving forward a lot faster now though. I'm about 20 pages into the next chapter, but a few major plot points have already happened. It feels so good!

As for the pedophilia last chapter…I know it was hard for some of you to read. I do apologize for that. I can tell you that yes, the pedophilia needed to happen for the plot unfortunately, as I will (hopefully, assuming I get everything in the next chapter that I would like) partially reveal at the end of the next chapter. As for the amount of detail I put in there, it's just how the story flowed for me. I seriously thought about skimming over it, but it just felt so disjointed considering the pace of everything else. I still don't know if I did the right thing on that. There will never be anything like that again, I can promise you that.

I will break my promise in the future about no more important OCs, but the next one won't be here for a very, very long time. I guess there's a semi-important one next chapter, but nothing compared to Suki. There will be a major one much later on though, which I've known about for a while but forgot to mention anything about. Huge bonus points if anyone can guess what they have anything to do with!

There will be more dub-con.

Yes, I was incredibly cruel to the characters these last two chapters. I honestly feel a bit bad. But really: Puella Magi Madoka Magica plus crime plus strippers cannot equal anything cute and happy. Or maybe it can? Who knows!

I wanted to make it my goal to get something out every month and a half, but this was a solid two months. I do apologize for that. Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who are sticking with this story! I know the updates are slow, but I'm hoping I can get out a good story for all of you.

I would like to thank the wonderful MagicalGay for being my beta! MG has also been great with making sure I actually write this story, so if any of you are happy to see an update, thank them.

Hope you all enjoyed this! As always, review, follows, and faves are much appreciated! They are probably the best motivation I get to keep writing. Of course, I will write this story anyways because it's on my bucket list to actually finish a fanfic, but the messages make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.


	7. Chapter 7

**Warnings: Toys, bondage, hate sex, dubcon (this chapter's going to be fuuuuuun) **

**Part II**

**Chapter 7**

Every step was painful. Kyoko focused as hard as she could on not letting the tears that had gathered in the corners of her eyes fall. She wasn't that weak.

She wouldn't let a traitorous bitch like _her _have that kind of power over her.

Out of all of her emotions, anger was the one she had the most difficult controlling for as long as she could remember. She was quick to snap, which she knew was something she should work on but never had the time or willpower to.

She was never quick to cry though.

It took a _lot _to make her cry.

Anger could at least bring out something fierce, like a warrior. Sadness and crying were just for snivelling little girls.

She wasn't a little girl. Not anymore.

It drove her crazy that she could have this kind of effect on her.

She called Yuma to go hunting.

She wanted to kill something that was sadder than her.

* * *

Every step was painful. Every breath was painful.

Everything was painful and everything _hurt_.

Sayaka had always sensed that Kyoko had a mean side to her. The girl had never really shown it though.

Her actions were cruel. Her words were crueler.

She wouldn't have thought doing something like that would have made her mentor so angry. Lady did it all the time.

_Maybe this is going to make her feel like she has to do things too. She'll be the only one not putting out now._

Sayaka sobbed a bit harder. She was selfish too.

Nothing but a stupid, selfish, conniving prostitute.

Her phone rang. Hitomi was calling her for the fifth time in ten minutes. She ignored it to focus on the increasingly laborious task of walking.

_I should go to a hospital. _

Her phone buzzed with a missed call indicator. Then it buzzed with a new text.

"I really appreciate everything you've done for us." It said.

Sayaka pulled at her sky coloured hair, threatening to rip them out of their roots. She had already thrown the disgusting yellow thing in her bag, where parts of it swayed limply out of the side.

_Why are you so nice to me? I don't deserve it! I don't deserve anything! _

She didn't deserve anything good, anyways.

The pain she felt inside her vagina, like something had been torn. She deserved that.

The pain she felt in the back of her head from where she had been smashed into a dumpster. She deserved that.

The pain she felt in her chest, where each breath felt like her lungs were being gouged by her ribcage. She deserved that.

The pain she felt, like she was worthless, pathetic, idiotic, and an overall bad person: she deserved that.

She called Kyousuke. She had to find out exactly where he was if she was going to go fetch him for her well-intentioned, agoraphobic best friend; her best friend who was smarter than her and stayed inside. There were bad things out here, and Sayaka had dived straight into every single one that she could.

"What do you want?" Kyousuke's voice muttered. He sounded tired, resentful and subdued. She'd never heard him like that before; not since the accident.

"Are you-" Her ribs hurt like she got stabbed when she tried to speak and walk at the same time. She stood still to wheeze for a few moments and tried again. "Are you alright?" It was a croak, but at least it was comprehensible.

"Of course I'm alright. I'm alright compared to you. I'm alright compared to all of you."

While in this specific situation, he was probably right in that he was better off than her simply because nature gave him the genetic advantage of not being a total fuckup, she doubted he meant it in that way.

"That still doesn't sound like you're alright."

She decided that talking quietly didn't hurt as much. She didn't have to breathe as deeply. Steady, shallow breaths were better.

"But I'm not allowed to ever say anything different, right? I mean, I'm not the one who saw all of the 'monsters eat my classmates'." His tone sounded like he was mocking her and Hitomi. It hurt too. She deserved it but Hitomi didn't. "I'm not the one who nearly killed himself doing drugs, so I'm not allowed to hate myself or my life. I can't remember the thing that destroyed my life, so really I have nothing to be upset about right? I'm so lucky. You all keep telling me I'm so goddamn _lucky_!" He hissed.

"You don't sound like you at all. What happened?" Sayaka strongly suspected he had been having a fight with Nakazawa. They both brought out the demons in each other. She wouldn't put it past Nakazawa to say things like that to him either if he was high on something or in withdrawal.

"What happened? You think the only reason I could be saying this to you is because something must have _happened?_ I'm just sick of being a _pussy _all the time Sayaka! Is that so hard for you to believe? Of course it probably is! You have your head so far up your _ass _all the time that you can't even see anyone around you! No one else can have any problems besides you! It's all about you!" He was shouting. She had to pull the earpiece away from her because it was making her head throb worse.

"Wha? Kyousuke, what's wrong with you?" She had to remind herself to keep her voice down. _Have I been that bad?_

"I'm sick of your shit! I'm sick of Hitomi's shit! I'm sick of Nakazawa's shit! I'm sick of my father's shit! And most of all…I'm sick of me. I'm sick of my life. I'm so pathetic." She couldn't tell if he was laughing or crying…or both. "Look at me. I'm a cripple. The only thing I was ever really good or special at was the violin and I can't even do that anymore. I haven't been able to do anything for myself for over six years. I haven't ever been able to do anything for myself. I never even got the chance to try."

Now he was clearly crying.

"Kyousuke…" She whispered. She doubted he could even hear her.

"I'm done with my life. Goodbye Sayaka." He hung up.

He hung up.

He said that and he just hung up.

"Kyousuke?" She asked louder. She called him back.

He didn't answer.

Hitomi had said he was near the bridge. He was only about a ten minute walk away.

She didn't think that would be fast enough.

She pushed herself off the wall of the building she had been using to support herself. She ran as fast as she could.

Her lungs felt like they were going to explode. She couldn't even tell if she was running in a straight line.

Everything hurt so _fucking _bad.

But it sounded like he hurt worse than her, and he was about to do something really, really stupid.

* * *

"Are you alright?" Yuma's face was contorted with worry. Kyoko had once heard an old wives' tale that if you kept the same expression on your face for too long, it would get stuck like that.

If that was true, Yuma had better be careful.

"I'm fine." Her voice broke when she said that. "Nothing a good witch hunt can't help." Yuma's eyes widened in shock.

"Did you have another magic attack? I brought some extra grief seeds." She had already pulled one out and offered it to her before she finished her sentence.

"No, nothing like that. Just…yeah. Found out a friend was a backstabbing bitch. Tale as old as time." She tried to shrug it off. She just looked meek pretending it didn't hurt.

"You had a friend?" _Good point. She never really was a friend was she? More of a co-worker or showmate or something._

"You're a brat." Her voice had no bite.

Yuma took on a more sympathetic disposition.

"There's this girl at school I had kind of been becoming friends with. A girl in my art class, but not the club. She and I had been having lunch together every day and she even invited me out to the movies. I was actually really excited for it, because I've never really had any friends other than you. My Mom never let me go out when I was little."

Kyoko wasn't sure where she was going with this, but listened attentively and waited patiently. Yuma looked down and chuckled mirthlessly.

"That night when I got beat up by the race car witch, we actually had been planning on going out. I found her and she was on the phone with some of her other friends. Turns out she'd heard a rumour that people who were picked to go to New York could decide who could go in their place if they couldn't. Someone told her I was too poor to go, so she started hanging out with me so I could give her my ticket.

"I told her to leave me alone after that. Kurasaki-sensei found out about it after I asked if I could give her my ticket. The teacher called her parents; she got grounded and couldn't go to the school dance. Now she's started some rumour that I'm not a virgin and I've been hooking up with guys to get enough money to go. I never really talked to a lot of people at school, but now a lot of them really won't talk to me." She put her hands in her pocket and shrugged meekly. "And a lot of the ones who do talk to me, I wish wouldn't." She added with a cringe as an afterthought.

Kyoko didn't feel sad after that. At first she felt shocked.

Then she felt angry; her good old happy medium.

"Who is this bitch? C'mon, what's her name?"

"Why do you need to know?" Yuma fired back. It didn't look like that had been the reaction she had been hoping for.

"Because I want to kick her ass, that's why."

"Kyoko, it's fine. She's just a stupid kid. She's not going to get to go anyways, so it doesn't matter."

"Hell no it doesn't not matter! She obviously hasn't learned anything and now she's made things worse for you!"

"I can handle it. This isn't that big of a deal. It's just a stupid rumour."

"Fine, we'll compromise. I'll kick her ass a little. Just a little." Kyoko made a gesture with her index finger and thumb while squinting to accentuate that it would be 'just a little'.

If the girl had been a magical girl, she would have royally whooped her ass without any restraint.

"I'm fine. Sorry I told you." Yuma rolled her eyes.

"No, you should be sorry you didn't tell me sooner. This must have been going on for weeks! Why didn't you say anything?" Kyoko's frustration turned on Yuma.

"You already had so many things to worry about."

Kyoko felt sad again. She sighed and hung her head in aggravated defeat.

"I've been ignoring you, huh?"

They walked side by side down the flooding streets. Yuma shrugged.

"It's okay. You've been busy."

"No, it's not okay. You don't deserve that. You don't deserve any of this." She gestured between Yuma and herself.

"What do you mean 'this'?" Yuma copied Kyoko's gesture. "I don't deserve to be with you?"

"Nope. You don't deserve to be stuck with someone you sold your soul for who ignores you. That ain't right."

"I'm happy here."

"You shouldn't be."

They walked in uncomfortable silence.

"Really, you shouldn't be. I want you to do better than I did, but you're always okay with just settling. It doesn't matter if this is better than what you had before; it's still not good."

"I heard someone say that appreciation is the key to happiness."

_My father said that too. _"In your case, that's the key to being a pushover. You can do so, so much better than what you've got."

"If it makes you feel any better, I am doing a lot better than you. When you were thirteen, you were a homeless dropout that swindled your way into hotel rooms and stole food. You were a stripper by the time you were fifteen. Now you're really, really shady. It's going to be pretty hard to beat that." Yuma grinned.

This was probably the first time Kyoko actually laughed about how much of a failure she was, and not in an insane way.

"You've got a point there." She ruffled Yuma's messy hair. It was never very orderly on the best of days, but the rain always made it worse.

"Why did you try to give that girl your ticket?"

Yuma kept her eyes downcast.

"I couldn't go, and I figured if she wanted to go so badly that she would waste her time on me, she deserved it."

Kyoko barely restrained herself from throttling the girl.

"Hey now, that girl is _lucky _you wasted _your _time on her. If she really wanted to go on the trip, she should have joined the art club. You're a great person to be around. You're caring, fun, and accepting. Anyone should be happy that you spent time with them. Why don't you think that?"

"I think it said in a movie once that parents always think things like that about their kids."

"Well I'm not your mother so the point still stands."

"You basically are in a weird, demented way."

"You still haven't answered my question."

Yuma sighed in defeat. She had been trying to dodge the question. She shrugged.

Kyoko walked into her and nudged her gently with her elbow. "Come on. I can tell you have an answer. Spit it out. I promise I won't ride your ass too hard for what you say." She already suspected what it was. Yuma sighed again.

"There's no reason for anyone to want to spend time with me. I don't even understand why you do."

If Kyoko could make a second wish, she would wish that Yuma had been born into a different family: a good family that actually deserved her. Not that cunt of a mother and dead beat of a father she had.

She would wish for that even before taking back her own.

She hoped her mother and Momo wouldn't resent her too much for feeling that way.

Kyoko slung an arm around Yuma's shoulders and leaned their heads together. She wanted to say something perfect to make the pain go away, but she was never really good with things like that.

"You're my Miss Poofy Pants. That's why."

"You suck, Kyoko." Yuma smiled.

* * *

_Are you alright?_

Sayaka kept asking that question to her friend who wasn't there; who wasn't in front her; who she had no idea where he was; who sounded like he was about to kill himself.

The thought made her sick.

Or maybe that was just the combination of sprinting with badly injured ribs.

_Probably a combination. _

"Kyousuke!" She tried to yell out. It came out as a strangled gargle. It frustrated her that she couldn't yell louder.

She was coming up to the bridge. She could see it just a less than a kilometer ahead of her.

It was deserted.

_Goddammit Hitomi, this is a terrible time to be wrong for the first time in your life! _

She closed her eyes to try to focus on running faster. She had to get there. She just had to get there.

"I'm coming Kyousuke. I'm coming. Please don't do anything stupid, I'm coming. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." She wheezed to herself, tears streaming down her face.

_"What good will you coming do? You've never been able to do anything right, have you? Why should this be any different?" _

"I know. I know. I just…" The tears came harder.

_"You heard him. You caused his pain. It's your fault. You hurt everyone around you, don't you?" _

"I know." It was getting harder to breathe.

_"You should do everyone a favour and just kill yourself. They'd be better off without you. You should have died instead of Madoka." _

"I-" She snapped her eyes open. She looked around her in shock.

_Where am I? _

The buildings around her looked like adorable huts that could have been found in a German child's play set or a fantasy-themed fair for young children, but there was something off about them.

This place looked overly cheerful; wrongfully so.

It had just been raining, but suddenly the sky was a pure, aquamarine blue. There were clouds that looked like marshmallows. There was a bright yellow sun with a smile on its face. Its jagged teeth were disconcerting.

The road was filled with pastel pink, blue and purple cobblestones. They wound through the houses, leading to a little brown bridge over a Caribbean blue river with a gel-like consistency that didn't seem to be flowing anywhere. Just beyond the bridge was a wooden platform at the base of massive house; it was at least one hundred times the size of the huts that surrounded it.

The house looked like a giant cuckoo clock.

She looked more closely at the bridge.

Kyousuke's wheel chair was there.

Kyousuke wasn't.

"Kyousuke!" She tried again to yell. He was here. She knew it.

There was something so disturbing about this place; so unsettling. It seems so wrong, unnatural, and yet familiar.

There was something about this place that reminded her of the attack on Mitakihara Middle School six years ago.

She was terrified.

"Is it time? Is it time? Is it time?" She heard harmonized childish robotic voices ask, surrounding her.

They looked like life-size villager dolls holding giant mallets that were the same size as they were. They had the same jagged smile as the sun.

"Is it time?" The first one smashed its mallet into the ground. Sayaka had to jump out of the way to avoid it. The dolls had no knee joints, so they had difficulty moving and turning, but they tried to face her.

_Ticktickticktocktockticktocktocktocktickticktickticktickticktocktocktocktockticktocktocktockticktickticktock. _

The disjointed ticking sound of a clock sounded so wrong. It had no rhythm and it went way too fast.

"It's time! It's time! It's time!" The robotic voices cheered as the dolls all fell backwards. "It's time! It's time! It's time!"

_Time for what? What's it time for? _Sayaka's instincts were screaming at her to run away. There was something wrong about this place; and whatever it was time for, she didn't want to be there.

The sun's smile turned into an angry frown and it turned into a sort of gravel grey colour. The clouds turned red. The sky turned black.

She couldn't see anything other than the sun and clouds. Everything else disappeared around her.

She heard a swooshing sound behind her.

She whipped her head around to see a pendulum swing just inches away from her. It looked like there was a video clip of her mother sobbing while drinking a bottle of wine on her own and eating chips. She was waiting by a phone.

"Come home, Sayaka. Please." She whimpered pathetically.

It passed. Another pendulum swung to her right.

This time, it was her father sobbing into his hands at work. She noticed how grey his hair was. She never knew he even had any.

"Please stop doing this to yourself, Fuzz. Please." He whispered while tugging on his hair.

It passed. Another pendulum swung above her. Hitomi had declared she was going to confess to Kyousuke because she wanted to die soon anyways.

It passed. Another swung behind her. Kyousuke was in a hospital bed and had just smashed the Walkman she had brought with a rare classic CD inside. "Why are you doing this to me?!"

It passed. Another swung to her left. Nakazawa looked high, way too high. He was choking on vomit. "Help me, Sayaka." He gargled out.

It passed. Another swung by her diagonally. Madoka was thanking her for coming along to help her. A huge piece of wood was shoved through her torso, blood and entrails flying forward.

It passed. Another swung underneath her. Saotome-sensei was being eaten by the worms. "Is there something on my shoulder?"

It passed. Pendulums were swinging all around her.

The baby from the crime scene was crying. Ryo was telling her he was disappointed in her. Kyoko was calling her a whore. Fusao said he had a thing for blondes.

Then they all swung back. The images repeated themselves.

_Ccccccuckoo! Ccccccuckoo! _

The images repeated themselves faster. The voices were getting louder and more frantic.

_Ccccccuckoo! Ccccccuckoo! _

"Stop! Stop! Make it stop! Stop! STOP!" She was screaming. Her ribs felt like they were about to burst. She had her eyes squeezed as tightly as she could and covered her ears with her hands.

She could still see the images. She could still hear the voices.

_Ccccccuckoo! Ccccccuckoo! _

_CCCCCCUCKOO! CCCCCCUCKOO! _

She collapsed to her knees in tears. "STOP! STOP!"

There was a club or something in front of her. She couldn't see it. She could only see the images and blackness.

She picked it up and swung at the pendulums as they passed.

The destroyed her mother. She destroyed her father. She destroyed Madoka. She destroyed Hitomi. She destroyed Nakazawa. She destroyed Kyousuke. She destroyed Kyoko. She destroyed Saotome-sensei. She destroyed the baby. She destroyed the classmates at Mitakihara Middle School. She destroyed Ryo.

She swung as hard as she could, destroying everything.

_Ccccccuckoo… _

The maddening cuckoo sound faded away. The sky turned blue again. The sun smiled again.

The village appeared again.

She was still holding her club. She looked down at it.

It was a string of black diamonds, identical to the one she had picked up and used as a weapon at Mitakihara Middle School six years ago.

She let out a bloodcurdling scream, dropping the diamond club to the ground and letting it shatter into diamond pieces. She collapsed and clawed at her head.

_"You need to get out of here while you still can Sayaka! It's not too late." _An androgynous voice spoke into her mind. Her wet eyes looked up, blinking. She couldn't see clearly past the tears.

There was a white cat in front of her.

"Are you one of the monsters?" She asked, voice raspy and quivering.

_"No, Sayaka! I'm Kyubey. You need to run away. It's too dangerous for a regular girl like you to be here. If you turn around, you might be able to make it out of here alive. Only a magical girl should be here." _Its white tail swished.

The creature was odd and had red markings on it. It looked like a cat, but it had wing things coming out of its ears. There were gold rings suspending in midair beside them.

_What the hell kind of cat is that? _

_"I'm not a cat. I'm Kyubey. You need to get up and run away now if you want to live." _

"You heard that?" She was flabbergasted and terrified. _What the fuck is wrong with this place? What the fuck is wrong with ME?_

_"You're in a witch's labyrinth. The witch is doing this to you. Only a magical girl can defeat a witch. You're not a magical girl. You need to leave now." _Kyubey repeated patiently.

Sayaka pushed herself up. Her ribs were hurting even worse now. She had been screaming and running too much.

She saw Kyousuke, crawling on his belly up the stairs to the platform in front of the giant cuckoo clock.

"Kyousuke!" She managed to scream. He didn't hear her.

_"It's too late for him. He's too far in. You're not yet. You can still survive, but you have to leave now." _

"No, no, I can't leave him. I can't. I WON'T!" She ran through the winding street, getting to the bridge quickly. She grabbed the wheelchair and pushed it over to him.

"Kyousuke! Come on! We need to get out of here!"

"Is it time? Is it time? Is it time?"

The clock started its ticking again.

_"You can't escape now, Sayaka. You're too deep. You're both going to die. What a waste." _The cat sounded disappointed, though it still looked like it was smiling.

She tried pinching herself. She was digging her nails into her skin, hoping she could make herself wake up. This was just a nightmare, right? This wasn't real.

The robotic dolls were crossing the bridge. There was no way around them. Her instincts were screaming that there was something dangerous about going through the river. This felt real.

She didn't have her gun.

It sunk in.

She was going to die. Kyousuke was going to die.

They were both going to die.

"I want to stop this…I don't want to die. I don't want either of us to die." She whimpered.

_"There is one way you could save the both of you." _Kyubey offered.

"What? Really? How? What is it? I'll do it! I'll do anything! Please, how can I save us?!" She was frantic. She was desperate. Did the cat have a gun? It seemed weird enough that maybe it could.

_"You can make a contract with me and become a magical girl!" _

* * *

Kyoko decided that she was either insane, stupid, or both.

She was kicking herself for letting things get so bad with Yuma. She hadn't even thought for a second that the girl could be getting bullied.

She still really wanted to kick that bitch's ass.

And Sayaka's. She wanted to kick both of their asses.

Fighting the witch had felt good. It was a strange spiral kind of thing; it looked like a giant spring.

She had to admit: the trampolines in that labyrinth were kind of fun. Yuma thought so too.

They decided to get some takeout, go home, and watch a romantic drama.

Yuma looked content. Kyoko smiled at her.

She knew she had to abandon the church. She had to get out of all of the shit she had gotten herself tied up in.

She strongly considered giving up on the church.

She felt her stomach drop and pressure behind her eyes like she wanted to cry.

She couldn't give up on it.

She hated herself. She was too weak. She couldn't let them go.

She couldn't let her family go like that.

* * *

Sayaka decided that she was either insane, stupid, or both.

She was stupid to go to the Kurosawa base. She was stupid to go on any undercover mission without a gun. Hell, she was stupid to come in _here. _

She was insane because she was stuck in a medieval fantasy German village on crack.

She was stupid and insane for listening to a mutated cat. But she didn't really have any other options.

_Maybe Kyoko actually did knock me unconscious when she smashed my head into the dumpster? _

_"I'm afraid not Sayaka. Do you have a wish? I can grant any wish you have, and in turn you will become a magical girl and fight witches like this one!" _

"Okay, fine, I'll do it!" _I'll wake up, right? And this will all just be a weird nightmare?_

_"What is your wish, Miki Sayaka?" _

What did she wish for? What did she want?

She thought of the images she saw; the people she loved and the way she either hurt them or failed to help them.

"I wish I could protect the ones I love!" She blurted out.

_"Consider it done! Miki Sayaka, accept your soul gem and accept your destiny!" _

She couldn't describe how to feel what was happening to her. All she saw was a bright sky-blue light. She was relieved to see it; it was better and more calming than the unnatural aquamarine in this place.

Her chest hurt, from deep within, but it wasn't a physical pain. It was like a spiritual pain.

She accepted it. She had to.

She held the source of the blue light between her hands. It was so warm. It felt right to be touching it. It soothed the ache she felt.

Her ribs no longer hurt. Her head no longer hurt. Her legs no longer felt unsteady.

She felt strong and whole.

The light turned into a beautiful oval gem on a golden base. There was a C-shaped marking on it that reminded her of her old Walkman: the one Kyousuke broke. She'd loved that thing and regretted never being able to find a new one. Music players like iPods just didn't have the same kind of nostalgia to them.

_"You should try out your new powers. Just focus on them and they should come out right away." _

She wasn't sure how she was supposed to do that, but she tried. She closed her eyes and imagined being strong.

She felt a sort of buzzing sensation and felt a dam inside of her break. It was like waves of energy were pouring out. There were light weights in her hands, and she grabbed them.

She opened her eyes and saw she wasn't wearing the skimpy outfit she left the Kurosawa mansion in.

Her arms were covered in what looked like dark blue knights armour. She held a shield in her left hand and a large, silver sword in her right.

She was surprised by how light they felt. They looked like they should each weigh a tonne.

The sky turned black again. This time she could see through the darkness though.

"It's time! It's time! It's time! It's time!"

The sky turned black but she could still see. The gigantic wooden doors opened. It looked like a replica of one of the villager dolls, but fifty times larger. Its mallet was fifty times bigger too. It moved forward but its feet didn't; it sounded like it was being pulled by gears she couldn't see.

Kyousuke had crawled onto the platform right in front of it. The massive villager stopped.

Sayaka was already running before it raised its mallet. Running felt easy, though a part of her recognized that she had never run this quickly before.

She leapt onto the platform, covering Kyousuke's prone body with her own just as the mallet was coming down. It felt like everything was moving in slow motion.

It was instinctual to raise her left arm, the one with the shield above her. It was awkward lifting it behind her like that. She didn't feel like she had a strong position.

_Oh my god we're going to die. _

She heard another smaller door open above the massive villager. An angry looking scraggly deformed cuckoo bird emerged.

She could almost feel the air being forced away from her as the mallet came down. She pathetically kept her shield arm up.

It felt like a feather touched her. That was it.

_Ccccccu-_

A second later, she heard a crash that sounded like a bomb had gone off.

Then there were yellow feathers falling around her.

She looked up and saw the villager was knocked backwards off its feet. Its mallet was embedded in the cuckoo clock, with blood, gears, wood and feathers around it.

The horrible place faded away.

She could feel the rain again. It was dark again. She was laying on top of Kyousuke on the centre of the bridge. She could hear cars rushing by beneath her like nothing had happened.

She looked at her shield. It was the first time she noticed it had the insignia of the Kazamino Police Force on it.

It looked like an ordinary shield.

She adjusted the angle of her arm so the shield was facing up. The rain drops that hit it were projected upwards, far and fast.

_"Your best form of magic is defense magic. You made a wish to protect. Your magical powers are based on your wish. Your shield is able to deflect anything with three times as much force as whatever hit it. It will be very useful for fighting witches like the one you just did." _

"So that giant villager thing was a witch?"

_"No, the bird was. When the mallet hit your shield, it was deflected into the bird. While I am sure it was just a fluke, I must say it was very impressive for your first battle. Here!" _Kyubey passed her a black, circular gem that was on top of a long point.

"What's this?"

_"It's a grief seed! It's your reward for defeating the witch. You can use it to clean your soul gem after a battle." _

"My what?"

Kyubey sighed. Considering the fact that its mouth never moved, it meant it sighed mentally. Sayaka thought that was unnecessary.

_"Focus on seeing the blue gem you held earlier." _

She obliged and surely enough it materialized in her hands. It looked the exact same as it did before.

_"Your magic was an excellent match against that witch, so you didn't really need to use much to win that battle. However, when you do use more magic, your gem will start to go darker. You need to use grief seeds to clean it and keep it bright, or else you'll run out of magic." _

"What happens if I run out of magic?"

_"You won't be able to be a magical girl anymore." _

She imagined running out of magic in the middle of a fight. Just trying to handle the force of that mallet without her shield…she shivered at the thought. She would die in no time.

She looked down at her friend beneath her. He was unconscious but his face was twisted in pain. It hurt her seeing him like that. Was he going to be upset with her when he woke up because she didn't let him get crushed?

"He tried to kill himself. He actually tried to kill himself." She said quietly to herself, trying to let it sink it.

_"Not exactly. He has darkness in his soul. Most humans do. Witches are attracted to it, thrive on it and abuse it. The witch in there gave him what's called a witch's kiss; it's a curse. She used it to lure him in. She was going to kill him and then eat his body." _

"Oh my god! That's disgusting! Wait, did that witch actually eat people?"

_"I would think so. It's been active for a while, from what I could tell. It's a good thing you stopped it!" _

"So where are their bodies? I only see Kyousuke and his wheelchair."

_"Anything that is dead in the barrier disappears with it unless someone living brings it out. Those bodies will never be found." _

Sayaka covered her mouth with her hands. That was terrible!

She wondered how many missing persons cases were from people who had been killed by these witches.

She had a bad feeling; a sinking one in her stomach.

"That statistic…that thirty-five percent of the city's homeless addicts go missing…"

_"I imagine the majority of them were killed by witches, yes." _

She felt herself crumbling. She was almost trafficked and almost witch food.

No one had even _realized _how big a problem witches were.

"How is that-"

_"Witches hide themselves very well in their labyrinths. Only magical girls know they exist. Even humans who walk into them, like your friend did, who make it out typically don't remember what happened or fear others will believe they are insane, so they say nothing." _

"The attack on Mitakihara Middle School six years ago…that was a witch, wasn't it." She said, not really asking a question. Kyubey nodded.

_If only I'd had this power back then…it wouldn't have taken anything at all to save her. _

_"That was my fault more than anything. I had no idea Oriko was trying to kill her; I figured she was aiming for me. I did not take due diligence to secure Madoka's safety." _

"You were there?"

_"Of course I was! I watch over all magical girls. It's a shame, really. Madoka had the potential to be an excellent magical girl, and so did you. I was too focused on the magical girls who were there. I am very sorry I did not look at you more closely sooner. It could have saved you a lot of grief." _

Sayaka didn't have the energy to be irrationally mad.

"It's not your fault. No one did anything right that day. I should have stopped her from going there. That girl shouldn't have killed Madoka in the first place. You were just trying to do your job." She figured she may as well be reasonable. No point in getting upset over something that happened six years ago, and realistically would have been very impressive if he could have stopped that. Hindsight's twenty twenty.

She looked at Kyousuke again. She hadn't moved from her position on top of him.

She remembered the first aid training she had to take at the academy. She started to feel his head and neck for damage or blood.

_"You know, you could use your soul gem to check him. You can even heal him too." _

"Wait, really? How?"

_"Just pull out your soul gem and focus on analyzing his body." _

She did, though it seemed odd to her. She couldn't imagine how it could even work.

It did though. It was like magic. She could see his insides light up in a bright, sky blue colour that matched her soul gem. It was like she was taking the most detailed x-ray ever taken in history.

It was beautiful.

She could see that he had no major cuts; just a few scrapes from how he was crawling. She wanted them healed, and immediately they closed up, just by her thinking she wanted them to heal.

She could see his bones; there were no breaks.

She could see all of his organs function normally. She could even see his heart beat steadily and his blood flowing through his arteries

She had never taken any kind of advanced biology or medical training, but she could just _tell _his brain and other organs were fine. There were beautiful blue branches illuminated, coming down from his head along his spine; his nerves. They created a neat path of branches. It could have been from a forest in a fantasy novel.

They were a dead, grey colour in his arms and legs, particularly at the ends. They looked broken.

And they were. Those were what had given him so much grief for years; what had led to the darkness in his soul; they were what let the witch inside.

She focused on them.

The fine grey ends shifted slightly, connecting with the bright blue. The grey ends started to flood with light.

His hands were quickly glowing cerulean like the rest of his body. His legs took a bit longer, simply because there was so much more.

A bit longer meant they took an extra two minutes.

His whole body glowed blue. There was no dead grey. It was all lively and _blue_. Just like her-

Her soul gem wasn't the same colour blue. It wasn't dark, but it was just dull.

"What-"

_"You just used a fair bit of magic to heal him. Put the grief seed next to soul gem." _

She complied. She felt a pleasant feeling of relief spread through her. She exhaled calmly.

Her soul gem returned to the same brilliant blue that his body had a few moments before.

_"That was very irresponsible to do when you only had one grief seed. You completely used it up! You'll have to find another witch soon to get another." _Kyubey took the frightfully black grief seed and it disappeared into the red marking on his back. Literally; his back had opened up, revealing a void of black and the grief seed disappeared into it.

"_What _the-" She began disgustedly.

_"Another one of my duties is to manage grief seeds that have been fully used. If you tried to use it to clear any other impurities from your soul gem, you risk having the witch rehatch." _

She thought of the disturbing village and decided that no, she'd rather not have that come back to life thank you very much. She nodded accepting it.

Kyousuke started to stir. He was waking up.

She was still on top of him.

Blushing furiously, she clumsily scrambled to get off of him and focused on returning to normal. Her shield, sword, and armor disappeared instantaneously. She didn't feel as strong anymore; she felt restrained.

"Kyousuke? Kyousuke can you hear me?" She gently shook his shoulders to get him to come to faster.

"Sa-Sayaka. What happened?"

"You're okay. You're okay, right?" She realized he could probably barely hear her over the rain. His eyes went wide with horror.

"I…oh god I think I tried to-"

"It's okay. It's okay. You're okay." She pulled him up to her in a fierce, tight, protective hug. She broke down and started to cry.

This had been a really, really rough and eventful night.

"Oh god, Sayaka I don't know what came over me. I don't even remember what happened and…I said some terrible things to you and Hitomi. I'm so sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me." He hugged her back, crying too.

She almost missed it. She almost didn't notice it.

His fingers clenched her shoulders tightly as he hugged her.

His fingers _moved_.

"Kyousuke! Your hands!" She pulled herself away. He looked confused and stared at them, before his jaw went slack in awe.

He could move his fingers. They were obeying every command from his brain to move easily.

Sayaka had healed his hands. The best doctors in Japan said it was medically impossible, and she had healed his hands in _minutes. _

She felt amazing.

She _was _amazing.

"Sayaka!" A massive grin broke out his face. "Sayaka!" He just laughed, and smiled wider than she had seem smile in years.

The way he said her name brought back the butterflies that she had felt all those years ago stronger than she'd felt in a long time. She hoped this wasn't just a weird dream.

"Kyousuke." She smiled back, nothing but happiness and adoration and tears of relief in her eyes for her best friend.

* * *

Kyoko slept well that night. She agreed to let Yuma stay home the next day for a 'sisters' hang out' kind of thing. They had a marathon of some stupid anime they downloaded illegally (of course), cleaned the apartment, made a nice meal, and went to the arcade. Afterwards, they hunted two witches.

Kyoko didn't have a magic attack.

It was a good day that they both needed.

"I need to ask you something." Kyoko said seriously, after they finished laughing about some stupid joke.

"Sure, what?"

"Did you give up your spot on the trip?"

Yuma looked at her cautiously.

"Not technically. I'd asked but Kurasaki-sensei said she'd only take me off if you said something. She hasn't heard from you, so I'm still on for now."

Kyoko smiled.

"Good. Because you bet your ass you're going on that. I don't care if I have to knock you out before tying you in on that plane. You're going to go, you're going to have a great time, and you're going to do all sorts of modern art bullshit."

"No, I'm not. Kyoko I don't want to leave you alone when you're having these magic attacks. They're really scary things."

"I'll be fine. Besides, we've got a bit over a month left before you're leaving. I'll figure it out before then. Remember what you said yesterday: I'm the parent. It's my job to worry about you, not the other way around. So you're going."

"We already went through our stockpile of grief seeds over the past few weeks. We don't have enough saved up for both of us. It's really not a good idea for me to go. I'd way rather stay here than go and think about you dying the whole time. It would really, really suck if you actually died too."

Kyoko sighed. They were going to keep repeating themselves if they did this. Their arguments always went the same way; they were both too stubborn for their own good.

"I would never forgive myself if you missed out on something like this because of me. I've always wanted to see another country like Canada or America, but I was never able to go. I want you to have things I never could." She hated opening up this much, even to Yuma; but she felt like it was the only thing that would work.

Yuma studied her and waited patiently. Kyoko gave her a look that inferred that she had said all she was going to say.

"Why Canada or America?"

"I heard they give big portion sizes at restaurants but don't charge much for them." She shrugged. Yuma looked at her slack-jawed.

"Seriously? You want to go there because they give more food? What if it's not even good?"

"There is no good food or bad food. There is just food. And when you get more for cheap, that's awesome."

"So you're not even thinking about specific places you want to see, like the mountains or the Met or anything like that? You're just thinking about food?"

"Food's important."

"Then go to France or Italy!"

"Their portion sizes are small and expensive!"

Yuma was laughing hard. Kyoko huffed indignantly.

"We might need more parent chaperones. Come to New York! I bet they have lots of food there. It could be fun." Yuma smiled, trying to hide the amount of excitement she was feeling.

"I'll think about it." She answered honestly. "I'll definitely think about it."

She'd like to go.

She thought about the church. There was no way she could go.

She could feel the atmosphere in the room begin to deteriorate.

Yuma could tell what she was thinking.

Kyoko sighed.

"I'm sorry, Yuma. I know you're right. I do. It's just…I can't let them go. I loved them. I still do."

"I know. I know." Yuma smiled sadly, and perhaps a bit bitterly.

They watched the rest of the anime in silence.

* * *

Sayaka slept well that night. She had been completely and utterly exhausted. She had not welcomed her alarm clock fulfilling its duty in the morning.

She had not welcomed the terms of her contract that gave her the whole magical strength thing either; the alarm clock and nightstand were both crushed under the might of her agitated hand.

"Aw shit." _I guess it wasn't just a dream._

The rest of her morning was not quite as disastrous. She didn't accidentally destroy her shower or anything like that.

She got dressed in casual clothes. She was going to go to the station to catch up on a bit of paperwork, have a meeting with Ryo, and then get the rest of the day off. She was owed so much overtime it hurt.

She stared at the floor length mirror in her bedroom. She looked the same. She didn't look like she had gained magical powers.

She focused on transforming. She felt the powers burst out again.

She took a good look at her new alter ego.

She had dark blue armour that extended up her arms and covered her shoulders with decorative gold patterns. She wore what looked like a metal corset that had a blue bust that was lighter than her arms and was white along her stomach. For some stupid reason, her cleavage and lower belly were bare; her soul gem took the form of C and looked like a belly button piercing. _Those gaps seem like a serious design flaw. _

A white cape flowed behind her. She had a metallic dark blue diagonally cut skirt and the dark blue armour on her thighs that matched her arms. Her boots were metal and white and also had the golden vines.

Other than her cleavage and belly button, she was well protected.

She turned to the side and looked at her silhouette critically.

_Doesn't make me look too fat …_

Her shield, black with gold engravings of the KPD crest laurel leaves shone was shaped like an extremely oversized version of her badge. Her sword was long and dark silver-blue with a shining gold handle.

She had to admit, her outfit looked pretty cool.

The _cleavage _was ridiculous though.

_"You designed your own magical girl form. You should have been more careful." _

She hadn't even noticed him enter the room.

"Is there any way I can change it?"

_"Not that I am aware of." _

"Fuck."

She looked at the time and saw that she had to go if she was going to make a nine o'clock meeting with Ryo.

The subway ride to work was uneventful. It was odd having Kyubey, a weird looking cat thing sitting on her lap while no one batted an eye.

_"No one can see or hear me. We can still communicate if you would like. I speak to you telepathically. Whatever you think, I can hear that too." _

It freaked her out.

_"I will be respectful of your privacy, of course." _

She didn't think she was going to like this.

Everyone at the office was still excitedly chattering about what had happened with the Miyamoto arrest almost a week ago.

"So we're running as stealthily as we can between these giant rows of crates to save our undercover. The scumbags are just confessing to all of these crimes that we have on tape! Seriously! All three! The only way they could get away would be if they could run without us catching them. But then bam! We have them surrounded on all sides! I'm holding up my gun, safety off, ready to shoot in case they open fire." It was one of the junior guys on the mission, Eito who didn't really do much aside from be backup. Sayaka decided to let him have his glory though.

The office admin women were all swooning over the guy. Sayaka snorted and rolled her eyes.

She went straight to Ryo's office.

"Miki! Not a minute too soon. Sit-." He directed, gesturing to the chair. Sayaka closed the door before she even bothered asking if he wanted it open or closed.

"I found the Kurosawa base." She interjected. He blinked a few times, trying to process it.

"Wait, what?"

"I found the Kurosawa base."

"You found it?!" A grin broke across his face.

"Yeah. It's hidden in plain sight in the New Industrial District." She told him the street name and the two buildings it was between. He looked like a child who was surprised that he got exactly what he wanted from Santa for Christmas.

"How did you find that? How did you get there?"

Sayaka bit her lip and looked down, feeling ashamed. She'd tried to avoid thinking of that all night. She'd had _plenty _of other things to think about to distract her.

"Ah. I see."

She hoped he didn't, but she was pretty sure he did.

"Miki, you throw your all into missions, more than anyone else I've seen. I'm sorry you had to do something like that." He sounded genuinely sympathetic. "Do you want to talk about it or-"

"No thanks, Captain." She cut him off. She sure as hell didn't want to talk to him about being fucked in a hallway by an up and coming crime lord.

"Ah. Well, if you change your mind, I know some good outside people. The Force would cover all of the costs of course."

She suspected that meant that he would cover the costs and in turn the outside psychologists wouldn't say anything to the deputy chiefs.

"But you know what? Your devotion makes me proud to give you this."

He slid over a badge holder.

"I already have one."

He smiled at her and opened it. The badge was the same, but the ID was different.

It said she was Detective Miki Sayaka of the Organized Crime Unit.

"Congratulations Detective. We'll be working together a lot more from now on."

* * *

Kyoko answered her phone dutifully but unenthusiastically. "Hello?"

"Hello there." Hideki, a loan shark friend of Kurosawa's greeted pleasantly. Kyoko had been working with this man for a few weeks now.

Hideki generally seemed like a kind, trustworthy man, but Kyoko had heard otherwise. According to Kurosawa, Hideki became a monster if you owed him money.

It was how he made sure he got collections, after all.

The man was well into his forties, but looked fantastic for his age. He had a full head of blonde hair that only had a few grays along the bangs that were always slicked back. He always seemed to wear designer clothing. If he had had another name that was less Japanese, Kyoko would have guessed he was German.

The only rule about guarding for him that Kurosawa had given her was to not borrow money from him. She could do whatever else she felt was necessary.

"What can I do for you today, Hideki?"

"Can't a friend just call to talk?"

"When did we become friends?"

He laughed in good humour. "Fine, fine, you caught me. I was hoping you could work an extra shift today. See, we're going to be trying to call a debt in and I have a feeling it could get ugly. I know he has the money, but he's trying to not give it to us. I trust you would be able to help us with that?"

"I'd rather not be involved in breaking a guy's legs."

"No, no, nothing like that. But I've heard you can be _very _persuasive."

She sighed.

"What time?"

"Twenty minutes, please."

"See you then." She hung up without saying goodbye. The terms of this agreement with Kurosawa and Hideki was that Kyoko would be on 24-hour standby. Kyoko was just thankful that Hideki wasn't taking merciless advantage of that.

She wasn't thankful at all that Kurosawa was dumb enough to owe money to a loan shark.

Her phone rang again, but this time it was her personal one.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Miss Sakura-san?" A goofy voice asked.

_Oh fuck_. It was Kermit the builder.

"Hey there. How are things going with business?" She knew what this was about. She wasn't happy about it; she'd been putting it off for weeks.

He needed payment.

"It's fine. It's fine. I'm sorry to pressure you. I have a few other contracts that I could bid on. I haven't been tryin' too hard for 'em though because I've been waitin' to hear from you. Are you sure you have everythin' you need for the church?"

"It's coming along. Really, it is. I'm sorry for how long this has been taking. Can you just give me-"

"I need at least 10% by Friday Miss Sakura-san. I'm really, really sorry. My wife's gonna kill me if I hold onto this too long and don' get any security."

Bob the frog was married? She was surprised.

So he wanted 60 million yen.

She had nothing even close to that. She'd been saving all of the money from her tips and contracts and wasn't even at the halfway mark.

She was so, so fucked.

"I'll get it. Thank you so much for your help." She smiled pleasantly, even though he couldn't see it.

"So I'll see you on Friday?"

"Yeah, see you Friday and I'll have it for you. Have a good day." She hung up.

_Fuck. _

* * *

Sayaka answered her phone giddily. It was her parents calling. She wasn't sure how happy they would be to find out about this promotion (and _significant _pay increase), but she trusted they could at least pretend to be happy for her.

She hoped they could, anyways.

"Hello there!" Sayaka chirped happily.

"Ah, well hello Sayaka! You sound like you're in a good mood today." Her mother sounded surprised at this, but pleasantly so. _Have I been that much of a miserable bitch lately? _

_Probably. _

"I am!" She debated briefly if she should tell her mother everything right now. Well, she could tell her about the promotion. She wasn't sure how well the whole magical girl thing would go over though.

"Well, I'm sorry to put a bit of a damper on that sweet pea, but your father and I can't make it tonight. Something's come up."

_Oh. _

Her parents had never missed a family day. Not once.

"Oh, uh, that's okay! I get it. I guess I'll see you Thursday then?"

"Sounds good. Have a good rest of your day off! You deserve it."

The line went dead.

Sayaka guessed that her parents were still mad at her for what happened last Thursday. Sunday hadn't been a particularly nice brunch either.

A lot of their meals together hadn't been particularly nice recently.

She swallowed and straightened up. They may not realize how important her work is, but at least _she _could.

She realized she had a lot of free time now. She didn't feel particularly tired either.

Kyubey jumped onto the couch next to her. She hadn't even noticed him before.

She decided she would try to find another witch.

* * *

Kyoko genuinely wondered if she was going to get herself killed. She had certainly known she was going to die someday, likely a violent and premature death. She assumed it would be a witch that would get her, either by becoming one or being eaten by one.

Now, she was convinced it was going to be this _fucking _church.

Hideki seemed to notice her distress.

"What's wrong Ophelia? You seem stressed."

She glanced over at him, not turning her head. They were sitting in his extravagant limousine. She kept looking out the window where the impressive modern metropolitan landscape of New Mitakihara passed by. She thought it looked more beautiful at night when the lights made it shine brighter than the stars, but it was certainly easier to admire some of the architects' finer creative details during the day.

They were on their way to the City Hall to pay the Mayor a visit. One of Hideki's side contracting companies that dealt with waste management got a massive contract with the city's sanitation department. In turn, the Mayor accepted a large bribe.

The night he received the money, he lost double the bribe in a game of poker with Hideki. He was trying to say now that he didn't owe Hideki anything because of the contract.

The bribe had been larger than all of the money Kyoko had ever had in her entire life.

"Not stressed. Just tired." She lied.

"A woman as beautiful as you should be getting her beauty sleep. It would be a shame if you were to start getting wrinkles."

She sneered, exposing a fang disdain. She knew better than to react any more strongly than that. She had no desire to get a penalty on this project for being rude to the client.

This long-ass project that didn't seem to have a finish date.

"Is there anything I can help with? Would you like a drink?"

"The only thing I want is a nap."

"Then be my guest! Traffic is going to be ugly up ahead. I bet we still have at least an hour before we get there. Feel free to doze off. I'd rather have you up and peppy when we get there." He smiled kindly.

She could swear she saw a glint of malice in his eyes. She didn't want to get too comfortable around him.

The Mayor had and Kurosawa had.

"I'm fine, thank you."

"Suit yourself." He shrugged.

She looked out the window again. Her spirits were low, and it felt like no amount of decadent food could lift them.

Yeah. Trying to save this church was going to kill her.

She smiled bitterly to herself. Her father may not have succeeded in burning down the whole family and church seven years ago, but Kyoko was still going to go down with it.

* * *

Sayaka genuinely wondered if she was going to get herself killed. She wondered afterwards if anyone would ever find her body.

This thing was way, _way _harder than the first one was.

This witch was a tiny, fast little white demon rabbit. The rabbit itself couldn't do much damage because it was so small. Heck, it was about the same size as Kyubey and even kind of looked like him.

The familiars which looked like skeletal zombie farmers that shot at her were another matter. And the traps in the field; those were another matter too.

She noticed that her reflexes had significantly improved. The moment she heard a click beneath her rapid feet, she could snap it up before the bear-trap like device could clamp on her ankle.

The devices themselves looked like jaws with fangs. She didn't want to see if they could actually eat her foot or not.

A farmer shot at her again and she raised her shield in time to bounce the bullet back at him. He exploded. One farmer down, a hundred more to go.

Unless she could kill that damn rabbit. Then they would all go down.

She noticed a blur of white speeding through the corner of her eye.

"I see you, you little bastard! Get back here!" She darted forward, almost reaching it.

A farmer appeared next to her, a slight distance away, gun poised for a clean shot. The farmer was on her right.

Her shield was on her left.

He was just out of reach of her sword.

She swung her sword, hoping to somehow miraculously block the bullet that could aim for anywhere.

_Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit…_

And then the strangest thing happened.

Her sword _morphed_. It expanded and curved so it sliced right through the skeletal rib cage, causing it to fall apart in a heap of dirty bones.

She didn't have much time to gawk at her transforming sword.

The rabbit witch suddenly turned around and leapt at her, tiny fangs bared.

It was aiming for her heart; the _one _area that was fully exposed.

_I fucking hate this outfit. _

Her fantastic transforming sword changed shape again as she swung it in front of herself, becoming more like misshapen axe.

It sliced right through the rabbit's neck, knocking its head clean off with a squeal that sounded disturbingly like a little girl's.

The labyrinth faded away, leaving nothing but a grief seed with a little rabbit's foot on it behind.

She was now dressed in an elaborate, inappropriately revealing suit of armour in the middle of an alleyway in the Old Industrial District. She collapsed to her knees panting.

She could sure go for some rabbit soup right around now. She'd never had it before, but she imagined it would taste _good._

She pressed the grief seed to her soul gem which had gotten a bit murky again. Her soul gem cleared right away, but the grief seed didn't look as sickeningly dark as the first one had.

_"Very good Sayaka! This seed should have one more use at least. Now you have a backup when you go on your next hunt." _

Sayaka groaned. "How often am I going to have to hunt these things?"

_"That depends on how efficient you are. Most girls try to hunt every night though." _

_Every night! Arg! _

She didn't want to chase fast little fuckers around every night. She already did that at her damn job!

She stopped and reminded herself. These things are dangerous; they kill hundreds, no thousands of innocent people every year. One of them almost killed Kyousuke. One of them probably killed Karana-san's daughter.

One of them had killed over half of her school.

It was an _honour _to be able to hunt these monsters every night.

By day and some nights, she could defend the innocent from the worst criminals in Japan seeking to exploit them, like the Kurosawas and the Miyamotos.

By night and some days, she could defend the innocent from the monsters that spread despair throughout the world.

If that didn't make her a hero, she wasn't sure what would.

That still didn't change the fact of the matter at hand.

"These things are harder to fight than I thought! Kyubey, could you give me some extra training or something? Maybe we could take a weekend or something like that?"

_"While I am not opposed to helping you, I am afraid I cannot provide that kind of assistance. I can't imagine any fighting techniques I have would do you much good. I am more of an information provider than a hands-on trainer." _

Sayaka flopped backwards on the ground of the filthy alley, not caring if her hair was going to get dirty. It was already drenched with sweat. She had been chasing that rabbit around for _two hours. _

_"Perhaps having another magical girl train you could be more helpful?" _

That caught Sayaka's attention.

"There are other magical girls?" She asked, raising herself on her elbows.

_"Of course! Did you think you were the only one? Kazamino would be overrun by witches by now if that were the case." _

The comment made Sayaka look away embarrassed, feeling narcissistic. A part of her _had _thought she was the only one and was special.

That being said: a squad of magical girls would be much stronger than just her alone.

"Well in that case, yeah it would be great to meet some others! Do you know where I could find them?'"

_"Hmm. Well, there is one I could think of who could be helpful. She has been a magical girl for over six years and has fought some very strong witches; much stronger than either of the ones you have fought so far." _

"Six years? Wow! She's a real veteran. She would be great! Where could I find her?"

Sayaka was surprised that this magical girl was at the Kazamino Middle School. She wouldn't have thought a teacher would do something like this. She figured cops, fire fighters, paramedics…more action-based physically demanding heroic kind of professions would do this. But she wasn't one to judge. This woman clearly must have an idea about what she's doing.

She heard the school bell ring. A few minutes later, a flood of students in the matching black, white, and blue uniforms emerged. She still thought those uniforms were ugly.

She recognized only one girl: Kyoko's odd little sister Yuma. She wondered if she should go say hi, but decided against it. She started to feel self-conscious about how creepy it was to be sitting outside a middle school staring at the students leaving.

_"I see you've already noticed her. That is Chitose Yuma. I would imagine that she would be your best ally in Kazamino." _

Sayaka's stomach dropped.

"Her? She's only like thirteen or fourteen or something! She shouldn't be out there fighting witches!" Sayaka exclaimed angrily.

_"Sayaka, I should warn you that you are the only one who can see or hear me. You may want to restrict your communications with me to telepathy or you may disturb some of the humans walking by." _

Kyubey was right. A few people had given her odd looks. She blushed and fiddled with her ear, pretending to be fixing a blue tooth. That being said, no one else could tell that was what she was doing, but it made her feel better to have a sane rationalization for her strange behaviour.

_"Okay, so does this work?" _She asked him.

_"Perfectly. But yes, Chitose Yuma is thirteen. That being said, she is an excellent and very experienced magical girl." _

_"But she's so young! __She-wait, she's been a magical girl for six years?__ She became a magical girl when she was __seven__? That's horrible!" _

Sayaka couldn't even imagine a seven year old trying to fight the cuckoo clock or rabbit; for god's sakes, she had zombies shooting at her just a few hours ago! She should be fighting; she was an adult. Kind of.

A child shouldn't be fighting these things.

She was about to ask about her parents, and remembered that they had died in the Mitakihara disaster; Kyoko had told her that.

Her gut felt even heavier. She covered her mouth and gasped in pity.

_"Did she become a magical girl after her parents died?" _

_"Yes, she did." _

_"The poor girl; that's so awful. Does Kyoko know about this?" _

Sayaka would have been terrified to find out someone in her family was doing this. She doubted her parents would be too thrilled to find out she took this on as well.

Kyubey tilted its head and swished its tail.

Then she thought of something else.

_"Wait, what did you say her name was?" _

_"Chitose Yuma." _

_"Chitose? I thought it was Sakura?" _

Kyubey's tail swished faster, like it was wagging. _Something doesn't add up. _

Sayaka sighed, looking at the girl with furrowed brows. She felt so sorry for the tragic girl. She felt even sorrier that she was going to be asking the girl to teach her what she had learned, in essence benefitting from her misfortune.

_"Don't feel bad, Sayaka. It's beneficial to her too if you form a team. Two girls fighting together is almost always better than one." _

Sayaka nodded. That was true.

She might as well try to help the poor girl as much as she could.

Looking at her more closely, she realized she was the only student walking alone. She wondered why.

She then wondered if the girl would even have time to make friends with school on top of being a magical girl. She felt even worse for her.

Sayaka started to feel guilty that she wished for the ability to protect the ones she loved, when really most of them were better off compared to this girl. She should have made a more altruistic wish.

_I wish I'd had more time to think about my wish. _

"Hey Yuma. Do you remember me?" She tried to be friendly. She was very, very conscious of how she could come across as threatening or a pedophile approaching a middle school student. They had learned all about detecting warning signs at the police academy.

Yuma had been in her own little world and was stunned to see the blunette standing in front of her.

"Uh, Sayaka hi! I wasn't expecting to see you here. How's your hand?" She looked flustered. Sayaka hoped she wasn't terrified.

"It's great now; way better than before." She realized then that Yuma must have used magic to heal it. _Aww, that's so sweet of her! _"Thank you so much for that by the way. I really appreciate it. I bet it would still be in a cast now if you hadn't helped me out."

Yuma had an expression of combined confusion and panic on her face.

"Oh no, I bet it was fine. You probably just banged it up a bit. It couldn't have been broken."

_"I am not sure what event you two are talking about. What happened to your hand, Sayaka?" _Kyubey asked curiously. Sayaka hadn't even noticed him sneak into her hood. He sauntered out of it onto her shoulder and perched himself there. She wondered if he did that for the dramatic effect; it sure seemed like it.

It seemed to work. Yuma looked at her with an expression of pure horror.

"Sayaka…Sayaka, what did you do?"

* * *

The talk wasn't a particularly pleasant one.

First, the mayor was flabbergasted that Hideki had the nerve to show up during work hours. Then, he was defensive, and repeated the same argument over and over again.

Then, he started to ridicule Hideki for bringing _Kyoko. _That pissed her off beyond belief.

"Really Hideki, bringing a _girl _to fight your battles for you? Ha! She's a foxy one too; are you trying to bribe me to give you the money by offering me an hour with her?"

Kyoko inhaled and exhaled deeply. She counted to ten.

She tried to focus on everything in the room except for the infuriating man she was there to intimidate. She focused on the beautiful mahogany furniture, the rich red velvet carpets, the bamboo plants, the elegant traditional Japanese paintings, _anything _but the ugly man that was so out of place surrounded by such aesthetically pleasing things.

"She at least looks like a classy whore, but she's surely not worth _that _much."

_Oh fuck this! _

Within a few seconds she had crossed the massive office and held the obese middle-aged man by the scruff of his neck with one hand. His toes were six inches above the ground. She bared her teeth at him.

"The only thing I'd offer you is my _fist _up your _ass_. So I suggest you hand over the money so we can all go home and put this bullshit behind us. You think because you've got some fancy overpriced office that you're better than me and can order me around? It's survival of the fittest, fucker. So guess who's going to kick whose ass in that."

He cut out a cheque on the spot. It was deposited by Hideki in front of him.

Kyoko looked out the window on the way back to Kazamino, absentmindedly admiring the cityscape in the sunset on the other side of the highway that she hadn't seen the first time.

Hideki was flipping through his online banking on his phone.

"Ophelia…I've heard of you, you know. I hear you have special talents. Talents to make things disappear, correct?"

Kyoko's lip curled.

"I'm only here to provide guard services. I shouldn't have even done that back there. He was just pissing me off."

She wondered if Kurosawa would be mad that she overstepped her boundaries. She was too fed up to care. It felt good being able to pick on someone she knew deserved it.

"Oh no, you did _phenomenally_. I had no idea how _convincing _you could be." He smirked as he said the word 'convincing'.

Kyoko still never turned her body to face him. She felt no need to.

She chortled mirthlessly.

"Glad to be of service." Through her tone it was obvious that she was not really all that glad at all.

"I still get the idea that you're stressed about something. What's the problem? Boyfriend? Family? Job?" He looked at her slyly. "Finances?"

She bristled a bit. It showed. His smirk widened.

"My dear lunk head of a friend Kurosawa has been having you work so hard. You've been doing difficult tasks too. You'd think he'd be paying you more than enough to cover your needs."

"It's none of your damn business."

"It can be, if you let me help you."

Somehow this man seemed even more malicious to her than the Miyamotos or Kurosawas did. And _that _was saying something.

"I don't need your help."

Her personal phone rang. She moved to ignore the call.

Caller ID identified the caller as being someone from the City. She felt her throat constrict.

"You can answer it. I don't mind." He allowed with a carefree wave of his hand as he turned back to his own phone.

She didn't want to take this call here, but this would only be the second time she had spoken with them. She figured this must be something really important.

It pained her to click the green 'accept' button.

"Hello?"

"Hi, may I please speak to…uh…Sakura-san?"

"Yes, speaking."

"Oh, hello Sakura-san. Is that the name you prefer?"

"It's fine. What is it?" Her tone was guarded.

"I am calling to check on the status of the repairs of the church. Has a contractor been selected yet? We have not heard anything from one."

"What? No, that can't be right! I picked one over a month ago! He said he'd be in contact with you." _Dammit Bob, what the hell are you doing?_

"Really? Ah, I apologize for the misunderstanding Sakura-san. We haven't heard anything. Usually once they get the deposit, they are in contact with us. Could you have them call us again? I am very sorry for the inconvenience." The man sounded very apologetic. "If you could do this quickly, that would be very much appreciated. I'm afraid that if we do not receive some kind of confirmation that something is being done within the next few days, we will have to begin construction."

Kyoko felt a sinking feeling in her gut.

_The deposit…_

"Yes, of course. Thank you for letting me know. He'll call you right away."

She hung up.

She wasn't looking in his direction, but she could feel Hideki's eyes on her.

"I apologize for eavesdropping. It's hard not to when you can hear the conversation a few feet away from you. I believe I heard something about a deposit on the phone?"

Kyoko winced and kept her eyes closed. She ran a hand through her hair in frustration.

"I'll make it work." She said hollowly.

"I can help you make it work, if you need."

She looked at him through the corner of her eye. She would have imagined his expression to be like a Cheshire cat grin, or maybe like Kyubey's.

It wasn't. His expression was unreadable.

Kyoko didn't like that.

She didn't like any of this.

_Is there any other way I could make 60,000,000 yen in a few days? _

"I need 60 million yen." Defeat had a bitter taste. Her instincts were telling her to run. She was walking straight into a trap.

She'd walked willingly into traps for many, many years now.

"Consider it done." He reached his hand out to shake hers. She took it, the unease inside of her growing.

He had a Cheshire cat grin now.

* * *

The talk wasn't a particularly pleasant one.

"What were you thinking?!" Yuma whispered to her in a combination of frustration and disappointment. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"

"I was saving my friend's life. He was being attacked by a witch. I don't regret this at all." Sayaka was feeling defensive. She had no idea what could be so bad about her being a magical girl.

Yuma on the other hand…she never should have been signed up for this.

"When did this happen?"

"Yesterday. I'm kind of new to this so I was hoping you could train me! Kyubey said you were a veteran who might be willing to take on some help." She rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. She hoped this could at least change the topic.

Yuma was shocked, and then glared at Kyubey skeptically. Then she sneered, full lips baring teeth that would have been only slightly more intimidating had she had her sister's fangs. Sayaka had always thought Yuma had a sweet and gentle face; she realized now that when she was angry, there was something that could be cold, almost cruel; like the face could belong to someone abusive. She had no doubt in her mind that Yuma was not cold or cruel herself, but her face looked like she could be.

She could see more of a resemblance between the two sisters now, but it wasn't a physical one.

"Kyubey, go away." She ordered eerily calmly. "Sayaka, come with me."

Kyubey hopped off Sayaka's shoulders and disappeared into the shadow of a tree, complying with her demand. It was the first time Sayaka had ever seen him actually vanish like that. It was a bit unnerving.

"I hope you're not busy…" Sayaka realized guiltily that she hadn't even asked.

"I can miss it. It's fine. We need to talk." Her words were short and clipped.

"What are you missing?"

"Art club."

"Don't you really like the art club?"

"What makes you say that?"

Sayaka had to pause for a moment and think. She had put herself right into a trap. She had heard plenty about Yuma's talent and passion from Kyoko, but she heard that as Rin. She didn't even think about how she could be blowing her cover doing this.

"I just remember seeing you at the park with your amazing paintings. I figured you liked art."

Yuma accepted her answer. "Yeah, I do. But it's fine, I almost never miss it. They'll understand if I miss it once. You can't mess around with something like this. I hope you know that."

Sayaka noticed that Yuma looked much, much older than her years. She realized that she probably had to grow up, both with her parents dying and contracting with Kyubey.

_What a tragic, tragic story. _

"Don't look at me like that." She said calmly. Sayaka couldn't help but notice how much Yuma's attitude towards her had changed; she was a completely different person now. She was distant.

"Like what?"

"Like you pity me. I don't need it." Sayaka flushed.

"No, it's not that, I-"

"You're like me now. Neither one of us is any more tragic than the other. We're both going to end up the same."

"Oh…like, dead?"

Yuma looked at her blankly. Sayaka couldn't interpret her expression.

"Yeah." Sayaka couldn't interpret her tone either.

"Ah…well, who knows? You've been doing this for six years! Sounds like you've got it covered." It made Sayaka profoundly uncomfortable to see a thirteen year old girl like Yuma being like this. She didn't sound hopeless or anything. She just sounded accepting of something she shouldn't have accepted at her age.

Sayaka hadn't accepted her mortality at her age. She hadn't accepted anybody's mortality. It terrified her. She feared it. She avoided thinking about it or acknowledging its everlasting threat altogether by any means; she did anything to not be alone with her thoughts.

That hadn't been the right attitude either, judging by the shit she pulled. Kids shouldn't even think about that kind of stuff, or they should only think about it superficially.

Yuma had evidently truly come to terms with it.

It was disturbing.

"I'm a very, very lucky girl." She looked at the ground with hands awkwardly at her side, as if seeking pockets to bury themselves into. They quickly realized there were no pockets with the uniform, so they distracted themselves by pulling on her sleeves instead.

The girl was anxious.

"Are you alright?" Sayaka felt like she may have pushed a few too many boundaries with the girl today, but she had no idea how to stop. She knew so much more about the girl than she realized.

_And she may know more about me than I know, if our last conversation is anything to go by. _

"Yeah! Yeah." She was trying too hard to seem calm. "I'm just thinking is all."

"What are you thinking about?" Sayaka prodded. She couldn't tell what was racing through the young veteran's mind, but she was willing to bet most of it would be valuable things to learn.

The girl started to gnaw on her lip in a way that must have been painful.

"A lot of things." She dismissed the question. Sayaka had been right before; the girl was odd. Now she understood why though.

It would be pretty weird to be a normal magical girl.

Sayaka decided she didn't know her well enough to pry any more than that.

"So what were you hoping to get from talking to me?" It concerned Sayaka how nonchalantly Yuma said this; like she expected the only reason anyone would talk to her would be to get something. At the same time though, that was exactly why she had sought the young girl out.

She felt guilty, even though she knew rationally that she shouldn't. Going out of your way to find and befriend a thirteen year old was at least slightly creepier than what she was doing.

"I want to learn how to be the best magical girl I can be."

"Why though? Why do you want to be the best one you can be?"

Sayaka made a cocky expression, as if ready to explain why the answer to that question was obvious.

Then she paused. It actually wasn't. Her expression went to neutral, then to uncertain.

"I guess it seemed obvious to me before. When you say it like that, I guess I'm not completely sure. I'd like to help as many people as possible. I want to protect the people I love. I want to make this city a better place. I don't want to let all of those people, those addicts like me die in such a horrible way."

"But what about _you_? What will _you_ get out of it?"

That answer did come quickly to her.

"I'll feel like I'm actually doing something right for a change. I'll feel like a good person."

The shorter greenette peered into her eyes as if searching the depths of her soul. She even felt like something weird was happening inside of her. Sayaka wanted to look away, but she restrained herself from doing so.

"And honestly, I'm sorry I know you don't want me to say anything like this, but now that I know you're a magical girl I want to help you. It feels so wrong to me that someone as young as you should be doing this. I want to make sure you're okay."

Yuma made a displeased face, like there was a mildly offensive food in front of her that she had to eat.

"So you want to feel like a hero?"

"I'm not sure if I'd go that far. I just want to stop feeling like this." Sayaka made vague gestures to her entire body.

Yuma was scrutinizing her carefully with narrowed eyes. It made Sayaka nervous; she had no idea what criteria Yuma was judging her on.

Yuma eventually gave a discrete nod.

"Okay, I'll help you."

* * *

Kyoko knew she signed up for something that would be a lot for her to handle, but it was already painfully clear that it was too much.

Hideki had a few dozen collections that he decided were bad debts. Apparently, some of the other criminals in the city had noticed this and were feeling cocky enough to try to attack the man to get more; someone was almost successful in murdering him just two weeks ago. That was why Kurosawa had loaned her out to him in the first place.

That, and Kurosawa owed him a shit ton of money.

Hideki wanted to prove that he was just as big a man as any other, and he wanted _everyone _to see.

He wanted everyone to know that the only men who don't pay debts are dead men; and no one will have any damn idea what happened to those dead men.

There must never be a body left for loved ones to mourn over.

This was why he was _thrilled _to find out that Kyoko needed a loan, and a large one at that.

"Don't worry, don't worry! I like to think I'm a reasonable man with reasonable terms. In your case, you have some excellent collateral you can put down." Kyoko raised an eyebrow, not aware of any particular asset she could put down. "By collateral I mean your skills of course. I won't try to collect the debt from you so long as you do what I need you to do when I need you to do it. And on my family's honour, I'll never expect you to do anything like what Kurosawa made you do before; there will only be one to two at a time."

She sighed in resignation and nodded.

The deposit was paid. The city was called by Bob. She had made something work out.

She wondered how happy her father would be that she was saving the church by doing the devil's work.

This was seeming more and more like an effort in ironic futility every time she thought about the man that she had given and lost everything for.

She was going to hide the first body for Hideki tonight.

She begrudgingly accepted her new life.

* * *

Sayaka knew she signed up for something that would be a lot for her to handle, but it was already painfully clear that it was too much.

Yuma was able to find a witch exceptionally quickly. It had taken Sayaka a solid three hours to find the rabbit, and then another two to kill the fucker. It only took Yuma half an hour to find this mutated demon offspring of Freddy Krueger and the Wicked Witch of the West launching flying dynamite broomsticks at them between slashes of long black talons. The barrier looked like a landscape of a dystopian future that had been destroyed by nuclear warfare; even the sky was a putrid green colour.

There were two middle schools students unconscious at the witch's feet, being dragged there by oversized bats with the heads of red macaws and black buttons for eyes.

_Witches and their labyrinths are fucking_ _weird_.

"I'll handle to two students. You try to beat the witch. I want to see what you can do." Yuma ordered calmly, considering that the fucking parrot-bats apparently had saber fangs as they discovered.

"Right." Sayaka nodded. She didn't want to seem scared shitless in front of a calm and collected thirteen year old. She had _some _pride after all.

Sayaka transformed easily. She already felt much safer with her sword and shield, and she already couldn't imagine her life without them.

She leapt towards the witch, vaguely recognizing her astonishment that she could leap dozens of meters in the air like she was just going up a few stairs.

Her wonder at her new abilities was cut short with a broom stick flew at her. She held up her shield to it, hoping to deflect it into the witch.

That didn't work though. It exploded on impact with her shield. Fortunately, the shield's magic seemed to provide a bit more coverage that it looked like it would based on its physical size; she wasn't burned or moved at all.

Still: that was her first and only strategy, and it wasn't going to work.

_Shit. _

She noticed that she had done a good job at distracting the witch from Yuma and the two students, so at least she had done that right.

_Yeah, that was totally part of my strategy so I'm kind of getting this right! _She tried to convince herself.

It wasn't working that much.

The chimera familiars crowded her and screeched. Their screeches sounded like young women in horrible pain. It was almost as maddening to listen to as the cuckoo clock's chiming was.

Sayaka's sword transformed as she swept it around her; it made a gigantic five-pronged blade that cut through each familiar in front of her effortlessly. She marveled briefly at how sharp her wonderful blade must be.

She marveled very, _very _briefly.

"SAYAKA GET OUT OF THERE! RETREAT, RETREAT!" Yuma screamed from somewhere that sounded _just _too far away for her to be able to help.

_Fuck!_

The witch must have caught on to her shield trick and sent in broomsticks and familiars from all sides.

Sayaka instinctually curled up into a fetal position. _So this is how I die. _

The broomsticks all collided with her at the same time. They all exploded at the same time.

She didn't have a single burn or scratch, and every familiar in the area was melted by the flames.

Sayaka blinked dumbly, not quite understanding what happened. All she knew was that _holy shit I'm still alive. _

"GET BACK!" Yuma screamed again.

Sayaka looked over to her, seeing a dark green blur racing towards her. Her outfit seemed so much more like regular _clothes_, things you might see on magical girls from the silly anime; it didn't look like they would provide much protection at all compared to Sayaka's knight armour.

Sayaka also couldn't figure out what the girl would do with the ridiculous big ball that appeared to have a cat tail. Would she use it like a hammer?

Yuma swung it; it wasn't clear what she was swinging at, as there was nothing in front of her.

_Then, _Sayaka noticed what looked like a shock wave of some sort being blasted out of it.

And right at her at a terrifyingly fast speed.

_Oh son of a bitch. _

She hopped to the side, slightly out of the way. Her shield was up.

The shock wave hit her shield. It then looked less like a large wave and more like a concentrated ball of green energy.

By fluke, Sayaka had her shield facing a way that the ball of energy catapulted right into the witch. It burst in a lime green light that was brighter and far more beautiful that the labyrinth's sky.

The witch's body disintegrated in the light. The labyrinth vanished.

They were standing in the middle of a deserted street with two passed out youth in uniforms. Sayaka and Yuma gaped at each other.

"So…can you explain what just happened?" Sayaka asked, both hoping that Yuma would have an answer and hoping that she wouldn't so she wouldn't feel so stupid for being so completely and utterly confused.

"What…what exactly is your power?"

"Kyubey called it 'defensive magic'. Apparently anything that comes at me, I can deflect it with three times the amount of force it hit me with."

Yuma looked impressed.

"I have no idea how I'm still alive."

"I saw what happened. You made a barrier surround your whole body. It was bright blue, so it was kind of hard to miss. Did you have your eyes closed or something?"

"I thought I was going to die and didn't want to see it." Sayaka chuckled sheepishly. _My god I look like such a noob in front of a teenager. _

Yuma smiled empathetically. "I've done that a few times before too. But what happened when my shock wave hit your shield…it actually turned the wave into a really, really powerful attack. This is interesting…"

Sayaka nodded along sagely, pretending to fully understand where the girl was going with this. Yuma was able to see right through her charade though.

"See, my shock waves are normally not strong enough to be a weapon on their own in battle. I'm kind of like you; my best attack would only work if there was something there to help me. I guess if I get close enough, I can smash the opponent with this." She pointed at her ball thing. "But overall, I'm better suited for playing a supportive role. You have a sword which is really helpful, so you could fight alone. Your defensive magic though…it can protect you but it also makes a great augmentative support for others' attacks."

Sayaka was proud of herself that she understood the majority of what the girl was saying.

"With you…I can actually fight." Yuma seemed to say more to herself than to Sayaka. It struck her as odd.

"So have you been fighting on your own before now or have you had a partner?"

Sayaka's eyes widened in realization. She thought Yuma and Kyoko didn't look much alike. Is it possible that they were actually magical girl partners who became really close?

She started to think more about Kyoko and anything that could have possibly hinted that she was a magical girl.

"I had a partner for a number of years. She died recently." Yuma said sadly, transforming into her regular clothes and holding her arms in front of her chest protectively and fidgeting with her sleeves. She looked at the ground.

_I guess not. That wouldn't make sense anyways. Why wouldn't Yuma have called Kyoko when they found the witch if they were partners? _

Madoka and Tatsuya hadn't looked much alike either. Two sisters who looked different certainly wouldn't be a first.

"I'm so sorry to hear that. What was her name?" Sayaka looked at the girl with sympathy. Yuma took a deep breath, closing her eyes. _This must be so hard for the poor girl. _

"Tomoe Mami."

Tomoe Mami…Sayaka had heard that name somewhere before. Her brows furrowed as she tried to remember where she heard the name.

"She used to go to Mitakihara Middle School. Did you know her?"

Realization dawned in Sayaka's mind. "Oh yeah, her! I never actually met her personally, but I heard the name. She was a year ahead of me. How did you guys meet?"

"In battle."

"Oh…so you had already contracted?"

Yuma did that thing again when she stared at Sayaka with an expressionless face; it weirded Sayaka out when she did that.

"Not exactly. She saved me from a witch. The witch had killed my parents though. She took me in afterwards and taught me the ropes."

Sayaka gasped and her face contorted in horror and sorrow for the poor girl; she had watched her _parents _get killed by a _witch_ when she was a little kid! And she came out so strong.

"What did I tell you about the pity looks?"

"Sorry, sorry. But that's so awful. I'm so sorry."

Sayaka became confused again. _Didn't Kyoko say their parents were killed in the Mitakihara Disaster? _

"So…you've been fighting witches since then. What was your wish, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I mind."

"Ah. Okay, fair enough. I guess that's a pretty personal question, huh?" Sayaka rubbed the back of her awkwardly and stared at the ground. She was prying too much and she knew it.

"Does your family know? I know I'm asking so much, so it's okay if you don't answer. I just don't know how to tell mine." She said quietly.

Yuma sighed sadly.

"Don't tell them. It won't do any good. There usually isn't much good that comes out of being a magical girl. It's not all fairy tales and justice and rainbows. It's dark. It's dangerous. It can be lonely. I've always had a partner so I was never lonely. I…well in my case, I got my family because I contracted, so I guess I'm better off. I think only people who have absolutely nothing, absolutely no other choice should become magical girls. It just seemed like you _did _have options and you had a lot." Yuma looked away. "I know I've been a bit harsh with you. There's no nice way of saying this, but it just seems like you threw it all away and I'm sad to see that, because I was really rooting for you. That's all." She finished meekly.

Sayaka got that gut churning feeling of guilt again; it had become a relatively constant feeling over the past few weeks.

And then the confusion hit her again.

"You got your family because you contracted?" Sayaka blurted out. She saw Yuma look alerted, like she was afraid she'd said something wrong. Sayaka cringed.

"Sorry, sorry, I'm prying too much. Just ignore that, just ignore that." She waved her arms in front of her as a way to express how adamant she was in dismissing the currently inappropriate topic. She laughed weakly and insincerely. "You're a bit of an oddball, so I guess I'm a bit too curious about you."

Yuma smiled genuinely.

"I don't mind. But thanks, I would rather keep some things private for now. I hope you understand?" She looked sincerely hopeful. Sayaka's expression softened fondly.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Believe me, I know a thing or two about keeping secrets. Just…I don't know, don't be afraid to talk to me if you want! I'm happy to lend an ear!" She grinned widely to the younger girl. The girl nodded back, smiling gently. She reminded Sayaka of Madoka.

"Maybe I'll take you up on that someday."

"Well, hey, if we're going to be partners, we should get comfortable with each other sooner or later, right?" Sayaka wasn't sure if she was committing a magical girl social faux pas by casually assuming they would be partners. She didn't want to sound pathetic in asking a thirteen year old to team up with her, but she really didn't know what the proper etiquette was, or if there was one.

The students started groaning as they were waking up behind them.

Sayaka was still in her magical girl garb.

"Oh shit." She cursed under her breath, then cursed again mentally when she realized she just swore in front of a thirteen year old. She transformed back into her casual clothes; a black trench coat, jeans, and black boots. The outfit made her feel like she looked like a detective.

"What happened?" The female student asked groggily. She looked like she was struggling to support the weight of her own head. The boy just groaned into the cement comically.

"Looks like you two had a bit of an episode. Are you alright?" Sayaka asked kindly. She bent down to help them get to their feet. Yuma stood a few meters back.

"Yeah, I just don't understand what happened…who are you?" The girl asked nervously. Sayaka didn't blame her; she'd just been through a lot.

Sayaka wasn't sure how to introduce herself that would make them feel calm. Would saying she was a magical girl make them feel better or more confused?

"I'm Detective Miki of the Kazamino Police Department. Your friend here called and said it looked like you were in trouble." Sayaka gestured back at Yuma.

"Detective?" Yuma said, wide-eyed and alert. She seemed scared.

Sayaka could practically hear alarm bells ringing through her mind at Yuma's reaction, but she wasn't sure why.

She could just tell something wasn't right.

"Sakura…you did?" The girl seemed surprised. "I don't remember what happened. All I know is that I was in danger. I thought I was going to die. I…" She looked like she felt remorseful "Thank you Sakura-san. You had a lot of reasons not to help me, but I'm grateful that you did."

Yuma shrugged completely and sincerely noncommittally. "Don't worry about it."

"No, really, I was so mean to you. I'm sorry I –"

"It's fine. Don't worry about it. Detective, am I free to go?" She looked anxious to get away. Sayaka still wanted to talk to her.

_Ah fuck, but now I'm kind of here in a professional role. _

"I would rather you not. I can call the Force and some of my colleagues can come pick you up so you can file a report, if you would like?" Sayaka offered to the two students. They seemed anxious to go home and decided against it. Sayaka assured them they could file a report later if they changed their minds. They declined her offer to have some people from the Force give them a ride home.

That left Sayaka with Yuma, who looked like a gazelle in front of a predator.

"You seemed scared when you heard I was a detective. Why?"

Yuma didn't look at her. She was looking down, thinking.

"I knew you were on the Force. I didn't know you were actually a detective though."

"Does it really matter? And believe me, this is a really new development. I just got promoted a few hours ago."

"Oh, congratulations! Haha…" She sounded awkward. She sighed. "Honestly, I have really, really bad experience with detectives. It's just hard to get past that."

"How so?"

Yuma looked like she wanted to tell her to mind her own business. She evidently changed her mind against it, which was good; Sayaka wasn't going to let this one go easily.

"My parents were abusive. I think my Dad might have been doing some illegal things, I don't know; I didn't understand at the time. Sometimes, detectives would come by our house. They were always so mean to us. One time, I'd even asked them if I could leave with them; I'd heard at school that the police were supposed to help people. I just remembered the way they looked at me like I was crazy, and my Mom beat me so badly that night I couldn't go to school for a week. And stop it, you're doing it again."

Sayaka tried to make her face look more impassive and uncaring, but it was hard. The girl's life just seemed to be worse and worse with every story she heard.

"You've…you've had a rough life, huh?"

"Made me a great target for Kyubey. Clearly, you have too; there's no other reason it would go after you otherwise. It recruits girls when they're vulnerable." Yuma paused, looking confused. "It recruits _girls _when they're vulnerable. Sayaka, how old are you?"

Sayaka hadn't quite reached the age where that question would offend her, but still, social etiquette dictated that that was never a question asked. It threw her for a bit of a loop, but again figured that normal social protocols don't apply to them.

"I'm almost twenty now."

"Almost twenty…Sayaka, I'm going to be honest; I'm really surprised Kyubey targeted you."

"Why?" Sayaka thought she had the makings of a great magical girl! Better than some kids and preteens, anyways.

"In terms of magical girls, you're actually really old. I don't mean that offensively at all, but it's weird. Kyubey got me when I was seven, which was pretty young. But it usually targets girls who are twelve or fourteen-ish. I guess you're technically still in your teens but still…it's not like Kyubey. A lot of this isn't like Kyubey to do."

"Why's it not like him?"

"He doesn't normally _help_."

Sayaka looked at her feet uncomfortably, kicking a pebble down the road. She would rather think that she had been picked because she was a good choice and strong; it sounded like Yuma suspected there was some sort of ulterior motive.

"You really don't like Kyubey much, huh?"

"You'll understand. You'll understand someday." Her words were cryptic. It was painfully obvious to Sayaka that there was a lot she and Kyubey were keeping from her.

She also knew that she had gotten more than what she was expecting today, so she should be grateful and start with that.

"Here: you deserve it." Yuma said, passing her the grief seed.

"Oh, no, I don't need it! See?" She showed the rabbit paw print grief seed she had gotten just a few hours earlier. "I'm set! You keep it." Sayaka passed it back.

Yuma furrowed her brows in concern, the corner of her mouth twisted downwards in dislike.

"Sayaka…I don't want to overload you with things today, but trust me. That's a really, really bad attitude to have. I appreciate it, but it's a bad attitude. Take it. I've got more than you."

"No, no, really. I have more time to hunt than you do, and you even said you have trouble hunting on your own, while I can! You need it more than me; I can just hunt another one. You're going to be training me, right? Consider this partial payment. You keep it."

Yuma sighed.

"Just take a bit of it, okay? Here." She pushed the grief seed against Sayaka's soul gem, cleansing it of the bit of darkness it had accumulated in battle. Sayaka made a noise of protest.

"It will make me feel better, alright?"

"Okay fine, but you take the rest! I mean it!" Sayaka tried to sound forceful. Yuma just smiled and nodded at her.

They exchanged numbers and agreed to meet again to go hunting together. They both cleaned their grief seeds.

Overall, that had gone well.

Well, Sayaka thought it had gone well. She wasn't sure. There were a lot of things she didn't know, and as her new status as Detective, she'd be damned if she didn't find out about everything.

* * *

Kyoko's personal phone buzzed. Yuma sent her a text.

'I have good news, but you might not like it.'

Kyoko hated it when Yuma was vague about things. Sometimes the girl did it for dramatic effect, sometimes to get out of trouble; other times, Kyoko swore Yuma didn't even mean to be doing it.

She suspected that this time, it was to get out of trouble.

'What is it?'

'I can battle on my own now. I got a grief seed. Where are you? Do you need a hit?"

Kyoko read the text. She looked up and around the alley in the Old Industrial District around her. She looked down at her phone and read the text again.

She could feel anger bubbling inside of her.

'What makes you say you can do that? How do you know?'

'I know because I got a grief seed. I'll explain when I see you. Where are you?'

'Old Industrial District. See you soon. We need to talk.'

Kyoko pocketed her phone agitatedly.

_When will that fucking brat learn she shouldn't go hunting on her own?! _

Kyoko looked around, trying to find a good witch to use as a drop site as quickly as possible. She could sense one very close by.

To make up for the steady stream of jobs she was going to have over the next few weeks, assuming this was a good witch to use she was going to try to keep it alive for a while.

She could feel the witch nearby; it was practically breathing down her neck, it was so close.

She whipped her head around; nothing.

She looked around her and saw nothing, but she knew it should be _right here_.

Hesitantly, she looked up.

_Found it. _

* * *

Sayaka's personal phone buzzed. It was Hitomi.

'Call me as soon as you can please.'

Sayaka cringed; she had forgotten about Hitomi. She knew an emotional reconciliation was in order. She sighed and called her immediately; this was one of those things that was better to get over with quickly, like ripping off a band aid. Besides, reconciliations with Hitomi were never as bad as she was worried they would be.

"Sayaka! Thank you so much for calling back so quickly. How are you feeling today?"

"A lot better than last night. Listen, I just wanted to say I'm really sorry about that. I was completely out of line."

"No, no you weren't. Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't get more upset about that sooner. It's really unfair of us to put you in that position all the time."

"No, no it's not that bad really." They always fell into this; they both talked on and on about how _they _were really the one in the wrong and the other was an unfortunate victim. "I've put you through way worse before."

It was true. One time when she was at her worst and her parents had kicked her out, Hitomi let her stay at her place. Sayaka was short on cash and needed a hit when she found Hitomi's mother's jewellery collection. She pawned it off, and thankfully Hitomi's mother found it at the shop the next day; apparently (though Sayaka's mother doubted this), it was a precious family heirloom. Sayaka still isn't allowed back in the Shizuki household.

"You were ill then, and we shouldn't look at our friendship that way. Kyousuke and I need to get better at working through our problems on our own. I also wanted to thank you for being there for him yesterday. He didn't tell me everything that happened, but I know having you there was such a big help."

Sayaka smiled. She wondered when she would bring up the miracle.

"And you will not believe what's happened."

_Here we go…_ Sayaka thought giddily.

"It's incredible! It's absolutely incredible! Apparently, the doctors have never seen anything like this. Sayaka, I know you were there when he first moved his hands, but they have full mobility now. His legs do too! He can already walk for thirty minutes without needing a break; they think he won't even need crutches soon. He just needs to work on strengthening his muscles again because they have been out of use for so long. I mean, it's absolutely incredible! Did you see anything, or know what could have done that?"

"No, I don't. I found him lying down on the bridge by his wheelchair. When we hugged, he was able to squeeze my shoulders. That's all I know. It's really amazing, huh?"

"It is. I guess he just needed the right motivation. I wish I could have been the one to give him that, but I'm glad he got it." Hitomi's voice sounded a bit melancholic at her last thought. Sayaka's gut lurched. She hadn't even thought of Hitomi feeling that way.

"There's no way that's all it was Hitomi. I don't know what…" _I do, I'm lying. _"But it couldn't have just been that. If it were, you would have made him move mountains years ago."

Sayaka heard her laugh lightly. "Thank you Sayaka. I know you're usually busy on Tuesdays, but would you like to come over? I'm thinking of having a celebratory meal for him."

That sounded really nice. Sayaka was looking forward to it already.

"Actually, as luck would have it my parents cancelled on me. I guess I'm too much of a loser for them!" Sayaka laughed. "So yeah, I'll definitely be there! Should I bring anything?"

After being assured that just bringing herself at 6:30 would be great, they hung up on a good note. She still had an hour and a half yet.

She lifted her arm to smell. She cringed.

Running around after those witches had done a number on her, and she needed a shower _stat_.

* * *

Kyoko walked through the labyrinth cautiously. It looked like a moss-covered cave that was only lit by multi-coloured fireflies, lazily flickering in and out and moving at a snail's pace. The walls were covered in vines with tightly closed flower bulbs of all sorts of different colours. This place looked like a place elves and trolls would live. Kyoko wondered if the flowers would spit acid out or something when they opened.

She didn't like the look of this barrier, but she also knew that it would be a good drop zone. She got out as quickly as she could to meet Yuma at a café that never pulled in a lot of visitors.

Yuma was waiting obediently in her Kazamino Middle School uniform. It was a pretty ugly uniform; Mami's had looked way better.

"Hey kid." She greeted casually. She figured making her complete and utter displeasure about her earlier text known now, in front of a bunch of witnesses, would be a bad idea. She also usually got more information if she worked her protégée into a false sense of security first.

"Hey." She greeted back casually. "Want to eat?"

She knew this trick. Yuma was trying to get Kyoko into a better mood.

"Always. Want to go to the old ramen place?"

They had a good meal and talked about things pleasantly. Both could tell that the other was being overly and falsely cordial.

They were saving the inevitable shit storm for when they got home.

Kyoko tried to draw some internal relief from the fact that she would have to leave pretty soon after they had the argument. It would give both of them a chance to cool down.

And it would keep Hideki off her back for another day. Overall, no downside.

The moment they both dreaded arrived after Kyoko locked the door to their smaller apartment. She really missed the old one. Moving had been a pain and completely unnecessary.

"So…" Kyoko started. "What's this about hunting alone?"

Yuma nodded gravely.

"I found a way to focus the energy in my waves, so it's a much stronger attack. I killed an average witch with one shot today. It's a work in progress, but I know I can do it if I keep working on it!"

Kyoko hated to admit that she was a bit impressed. She wasn't going to tell Yuma that though; she didn't want to encourage this.

"Why were you fighting a witch alone?"

"Two of my classmates were being attacked. I didn't want to let them die."

Kyoko scrutinized the girl. She decided Yuma was telling the truth, but was not giving her all of the details. She was starting to fidget.

"Anything else?"

"What do you mean?"

"Was there any other reason you were fighting alone?"

"No."

Kyoko narrowed her eyes. Yuma fidgeted with her sleeves; her telltale sign that she was lying. She was pretty good at lying, but it wasn't as effortless for her as it was for Kyoko.

"You're lying to me. Why else were you fighting alone?"

Yuma gnawed her lip worriedly.

"Spit it out. C'mon."

"I wanted to prove that I could." She exhaled quickly. Kyoko pursed her lips disapprovingly and closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

Had she kept them open, she may have noticed that Yuma didn't stop fidgeting with her sleeves.

"It's great that you can concentrate your attacks more; really, it is and I'll say I'm proud of you for that. I want you to keep practicing that, but only when you're in battles with me, got it? I don't want you messing around with witches on your own."

"You have so much going on now though! This would be something off your plate that you don't have to worry about. Here." Yuma threw the grief seed at her. "Use it."

Kyoko obliged; she needed to be cleared up anyways. She looked at the grief seed carefully.

"Looks like you had to use a fair bit of it on yourself already; more than a hit, at least. How draining is this magic concentration for you? It's useful to have, but if it's throwing your energy out the door for no reason, there's no need to keep doing it."

Yuma inhaled sharply; she clearly hadn't thought about that. Kyoko couldn't keep herself from smiling smugly.

"We're good with how we're doing things. No more fighting on your own. We can handle this. Got it?"

"Yeah. Got it." Yuma didn't sound happy about it, but at least she conceded.

Kyoko sighed in relief. It had been a lot better than she thought it would be.

She walked over to the couch and flopped down beside Yuma, throwing an arm around her shoulder and drawing her close to her into gentle hug. Kyoko had never been comfortable enough with anybody to act this way towards somebody; not even her own sister. It had been natural to be like this with Yuma for years though.

"I get why you keep trying to do this. I do. And I really appreciate it, kay? It's just that the worst thing I can imagine happening is you getting hurt." She absentmindedly massaged the girl's scalp, making her messy hair messier.

Yuma nodded, face buried into Kyoko's shoulders. Most girls her age wouldn't be caught dead snuggling with their family members like that; a nice thing about facing death every few days was that they didn't have to care about feeling embarrassed to show affection.

Kyoko kept an eye on the clock over the TV. Yuma had dozed off about an hour ago and was peaceful in her slumber. Kyoko wondered how often Yuma slept like that; she hoped if was often, but it made her jealous at the same time.

She carried the girl to bed and tucked her in. _That _would piss off Yuma if she woke up before Kyoko got back.

'Wear the boots and gloves we left on the East side of the building' The text said. She raised an eyebrow at the odd demand, but figured that she shouldn't ask questions.

She went out and found the bodies, right where they should be. The witch, which she still had not seen behaved remarkably well and followed her obediently. There was so little mess it was almost miraculous. She wore the heavy rubber boots and gloves that were left for her.

They had been electrocuted and were lying face down in a puddle of water. Kyoko understood why she had the peculiar instructions now, and vaguely felt a twisted sense of appreciation that they showed such care for her safety. She didn't think Kurosawa or Tomi would have done something like that.

She threw the two bodies on the ground of the cave-like labyrinth.

The vines with the flower bulbs reached away from the walls towards the bodies. The flowers opened. They were sickening.

Some of the flowers had enlarged human eyes in them that peered at the corpses. Others had long tongues that tasted them. Some just had empty holes. Every petal was lined with fangs as sharp as razors.

The vines suddenly snapped forward, fanged petals tearing the bodies apart and throwing pieces of human flesh everywhere. The flowers with the holes sucked the bits of meat away, not leaving a single trace behind. Kyoko felt queasy.

The flowers with the eyes turned to look at her. She had her spear ready, just in case they attacked.

The petals tightened in a way, making it appear as though each eye were on a smiling face. The flowers with the holes made a contented gargling sound. The vines returned to the walls and the blossoms closed.

Kyoko suppressed a shudder and went home.

She had found a willing witch accomplice, and she had a nagging feeling that it was going to be a real bitch to get rid of at the end of all of this.

* * *

Sayaka walked through the halls of Hitomi's apartment building comfortably. She was so familiar with them, it felt like she was going back to a third home now.

She knocked on the door. She knew that had Madoka been alive today, the girl would have kept her door unlocked for Sayaka any time she came by. Hitomi was always more formal and guarded than that.

Her newly acquired superhuman hearing picked up on the sound of rustling beyond the door; there were a number of people in there. It was great that so many people came out on such short notice to support Kyousuke!

Hitomi opened the door while staying partially behind it, like she was trying to stay out of Sayaka's way.

"Hey Hito-"

"SURPRISE!" A group of people jumped up from behind the couches.

_Oh shit, this was a surprise party?! Why didn't you tell me?!_

"SURPRISE!" Sayaka yelled, clearly out of sync with the group with arms outstretched over her head, looking for Kyousuke to make awkward eye contact.

The crowd of people looked at her strangely. She noticed a banner hanging to the side.

'Happy two years, Sayaka!' It read proudly. It looked like a few people had spent a lot of time making that; the calligraphy was beautiful and designs along the borders intricate. She suspected her mother had played a very active role in making that.

She blinked a few times, letting the situation sink in. It was true; she had been clean for two years now.

"I thought this was a surprise party for Kyousuke." She groaned, letting her arms fall limply at her side. The crowd laughed.

Actually, a lot of people had come. Hitomi and Kyousuke were there, along with their parents. Her own parents of course rushed over to hug her. Seven people from the Force, including Ayumi were there. She recognized a group of the regulars from group sessions too. Having them all in Hitomi's fairly cozy apartment made the group of people seem much larger and more numerous than they were.

Still, she got a happy, bubbly feeling in her chest seeing everyone here.

"Congratulations Fuzz. We're proud of you." Her father smiled paternally. She smiled back.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the police group huddled together, trying to coordinate something amongst themselves.

"Okay, one, two three." She heard Ayumi whisper.

"SURPRISE!" The police group cheered _very _spiritedly on their own, making everyone except for Sayaka jump.

They had a banner too, that was comically less pretty than the banner that was hung. It read 'Congrats on the Promotion!'

"You got _promoted_?" Kyousuke asked excitedly.

"Show us the new badge, Miki!" One of the force members shouted. "Show it, show it, show it!" They started to chant, urging others to join in. Soon, the whole room except for her parents were chanting in rhythm.

Her parents looked conflicted.

Sayaka grinned and pulled it out of her pocket, throwing it to Ayumi. She opened it, and cleared her throat as if about to make a proclamation.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting: _Detective _Miki Sayaka of the Organized Crime Unit!"

The crowd cheered again. Sayaka blushed bashfully.

"Congratulations Sayaka! You've had a lot of achievements recently." Hitomi smiled kindly.

_Oh, if only you knew…_

"Thanks, but really the exciting one here is Kyousuke! I mean he can-"

"No, no, this is about you!" He was struggling to get through the crowd on his crutches. She imagined it would have been even worse in this wheelchair.

"We've been holding our breath while planning this for months." Her mother cut in. "Really, two years is such an accomplishment and we are so proud of you!"

She noticed the way neither of her parents said anything about her promotion.

They weren't going to make an issue of it now, but they were going to later.

"Thanks Mom." She said, trying to keep any bite out of her tone. No one but her mother seemed to recognize that there was any strain in her voice.

_Yeah, this is going to be a fight. _

The rest of the party passed pleasantly enough. There was a lot of fantastic food (her parents probably advised everyone of her favourites) and a ridiculously over-the-top cake for the occasion.

They had speeches, which was actually _incredibly _embarrassing. Hitomi and her mother had sentimental speeches; her Mom cried, which made Sayaka _almost _cry. Her father and _everyone _from work(literally all seven of them) had ones that made merciless fun of her. Some of the people from the group sessions said quick, nice things but didn't go into much detail; they were probably trying to respect the privacy of what was said in the meetings, which she appreciated.

The last one to speak was Kyousuke.

"Sayaka, I'm really proud of you. I'm not surprised though; if anyone could do this, you could. I'm not really good with words…" He looked down sheepishly, before pulling out his old violin. Sayaka's breath hitched as she brought her hands in front of her mouth.

"I haven't played in a very long time, so please go easy on me if I'm really, really bad." He asked the room sheepishly.

He awkwardly placed the violin against his throat and grappled with the bow, but he got it quickly enough. There was something so odd but so sweet in the scene; he had clearly grown a fair bit physically since he lost the ability to play which made holding it awkward; at the same time though, it just looked so natural to see him and his violin together like that.

The violin screeched a bit through a childish rendition of 'For she's a jolly good fellow'. Some of the officers teased him ("Weren't you a freaking violin prodigy or something?'), but it was all in good humour.

His first song since getting his hands back was for her; he played his first song for her.

This had brought tears to her eyes.

She didn't notice the fleeting dark look Hitomi's eyes had.

Kyousuke put down the violin and hobbled over to her to give her a hug. Sayaka got up to meet him. His crutch got caught on the table leg. He fell into her.

The crowd laughed at their spectacle, but Sayaka didn't hear any of it.

She felt the way his warm body fell into hers. She felt the cold wall on her back.

She heard his grunt of pain or annoyance or embarrassment or _something _in her right ear.

It brought her back to a scene from the night before that she didn't want to play out again. The way her body had been pinned to the wall while he thrusted in and out of her, grunting with each movement in her ears and she _let _it happen.

Her eyes widened in fear, face full of terror. She pushed him away from her.

Her newfound strength emerged, fuelled by her sudden spike of adrenaline.

Kyousuke was literally launched across the room, only halted about halfway across because he was pushed into some of her friends from work. They all tumbled down.

It took her a moment to process what had just happened.

"Sayaka? Are you alright?" Her mother asked with great concern.

She breathed deeply a few times, still putting pieces together.

_Oh fuck. _

"I'm so sorry!" She burst out, tears streaming down her face. She noticed the warm droplets and quickly tried to wipe them away before anyone noticed. Unfortunately, the whole room had been staring at her uncomfortably.

"I'm…I'm okay." Kyousuke said, evidently winded by the force of the blow. She pulled him and everyone else up as gently as she could.

"Come on, let's go talk Sayaka." Hitomi took Sayaka's arm gently and spoke the way she might speak to an animal that was about to run for it. Sayaka swallowed and nodded as they went into the bathroom, turned on the fan, and locked the door.

"Sayaka…I didn't want to say anything, but I know you had been really upset last night. That reaction was…well it was a bit strong. Did something…happen? Something you want to talk about?"

"Oh my god, I practically threw Kyousuke across the room." She groaned into her hands. "I need to go apologize. I need to go help him."

"Sayaka, you already did and he's fine. What happened?"

"I need to make sure everyone's alright. I need to make sure I didn't ruin the party. I really fucked up didn't I? That was bad. I shouldn't have done that. I need to make sure they're alright." She said hurriedly and frantically.

She just wanted to get out of this cramped room.

"Sayaka, it's _alright_! We don't need to talk. Let's not talk, alright? But I don't think you're ready to go back out there. Here, just sit down." Hitomi tried to gently guide Sayaka to sit down on the rim of the tub. After a few moments, Sayaka relented, heart rate and breath slowing down. "Good, good. Just sit down. Let's just sit."

The sat for a few moments while Sayaka got herself back together. Hitomi sat patiently next to her. They didn't say anything to each other. They didn't look at each other. They just sat.

"I had sex last night and I really, really didn't want to." Sayaka started to say. It felt good to get it out, but it hurt to say. "I did it to get information for work. I'm a prostitute." She choked out.

Hitomi looked at her with shock and sympathy.

"Sayaka, I'm so sorry. Can I give you a hug?"

Sayaka was curled in on herself, shaking. She honestly didn't know.

She hurriedly nodded, and as soon as she felt the comforting pressure from her friend, she broke down miserably.

Sayaka wasn't sure how long they stayed like that for, but eventually she calmed down and wasn't sobbing. She felt better, but still not perfect.

It wasn't as bad as before though.

"I know your parents are worried about you, Sayaka." Hitomi said gently. "I am too. Are you sure this is good for you? What you're doing?" Hitomi wiped a few tears from her face.

Hitomi looked so immaculate and polished and beautiful.

Sayaka made the mistake of glancing in the mirror to see her mascara had smudged terribly.

"I know it's not good for me. I know, but it's good for everyone else. I can't stop now. I'm so close to getting all of them. I have to keep going. I have to." She whispered, more to herself.

She had to get the criminals off the streets by day, and get the witches off the streets by night.

She could do it, and she would.

"Please don't hurt yourself, Sayaka. None of us want to see you self-destruct."

She thought to some of the cryptic warnings Yuma had given her.

She doubted it was possible to avoid that path.

* * *

Kyoko was not excited to work at the club tonight. She had entertained thoughts of quitting for years, but more so recently.

But it was a good way to launder money and Tomi and Kurosawa would freak if she did. She sighed and looked in the mirror.

_I went too heavy on the black eye makeup tonight. Ah well; too late to change it now. _

Well, it was truly not too late to; it was more that Kyoko had no motivation to. She had no motivation to be here.

She had no motivation to deal with the undercover cop she had eaten out on numerous occasions and beat the shit out of just two nights ago. She had been exceptionally surprised to hear that she hadn't called to cancel her shift tonight; she would have thought that she would still be recovering.

_Blue's fucking crazy. I can't tell what to expect from her. _

"Hey, Kyoko, how are you." _Speak of the devil. _Sayaka looked hesitant and awkward; her question hadn't even sounded like a question at all.

"Fine." Kyoko shrugged, not intending to move the conversation any further. She continued to pretend to fix her hair, staring at the mirror. In reality, she never took her eyes off of Sayaka's reflection.

"Can I talk to you for second?" _God this girl is so pathetic. _Kyoko tried to convince herself that was how she was feeling; disgusted by this desperate cretin of a cop.

It pissed her off that she still just felt sad.

"No."

"I understand why you're mad. I'm sorry, I should have talked to you first."

Kyoko didn't turn around, but she stopped pretending to be doing her hair. She crossed her leather clad arms in front of her equally leather clad chest. The dominatrix outfit was her favourite; it was the least bad of a bunch of bad choices.

"Why do you think I'm mad?" She was genuinely curious to see how the girl had rationalized their last unfriendly encounter.

"Well, you know, I guess there's going to be more pressure on you now to do things…you may not want to do. I mean, James isn't my type but I could see why Lady might like him. Honestly, I don't know how I feel about Fusao but…Kurosawa I wouldn't…well, you get it."

Kyoko thought about it for a second.

_Son of a fucking bitch, I hadn't even thought about him thinking he could sleep with me. _

"Yeah, well, you did what you did. I guess it was pretty damn good based on how much noise you were making." She bit out. Sayaka flinched and looked profoundly uncomfortable and hurt. "Can't change it now."

"Is everything alright here?" A cool voice asked. This was not a night that Kyoko would have wanted to have the robotic bitch working.

"It's fine Geisha, thanks. Are you ready?" Sayaka asked politely. Kyoko didn't think the girl really cared to hear an answer.

Geisha was wearing one of her overly extravagant kimonos again. Sayaka was wearing a green Lolita dress that really looked terrible with her skin tone, but matched those disgustingly fake eyes.

_She would look so much better in blue. _

Now she understood why she always hated her hair and eyes. They were fake. She was honestly surprised that there had never been an instance when the wig got pulled off or something.

_Well, it's always been me pleasuring her so…_

Kyoko entertained the thought of switching the roles, just to get at least some sort of personal revenge. After all, the girl would clearly do it.

Something about that made her feel hollow inside.

"Precious, you got booked somewhere else tonight." Lady walked over, tossing a plastic bag at Sayaka that would have her costume.

"Huh? But I always work in Room B with you guys."

"I tried to say that to Mangohead. There was a last minute booking for Room A and for some reason, she was convinced you would be the best choice for it. Sounds like it's some guys living out a weird fantasy of their friends or something, because they want you to wear a wig. You're only booked there until 11:30, so you can come up after."

Sayaka nodded and pulled out the costume. She froze. Her eyes were wide and startled.

Kyoko raised an inquisitive eyebrows and looked over to see the costume.

Her expression matched Sayaka's.

In Sayaka's hands, she held the slutty cop outfit and a short blue wig, identical in style and colour to her actual hair.

* * *

Sayaka was not excited to work at the club tonight. She just wanted to take a break. Last night's party had been awkward after her little outburst, but luckily everyone (with the help of some alcohol from the cops) seemed to forget about it quickly enough.

Most of all though, she had been right in assuming that her conversation with Kyoko was going to be uncomfortable, but she hoped it would at least patch things up a bit. It didn't. She should have taken more time to plan what she was going to say, but saying that she had had a few other things on her mind would be the understatement of the century. She had hoped and hadn't thought that having Kyoko mad at her wouldn't be too big of a deal; she could still work here.

But now…now that she was holding this cover-blowing costume…her intestines felt like rocks. She could hear her heart pounding. Her adrenaline was racing.

She wanted to run. She had to run. She had no idea how to.

She glanced around furtively, somehow hoping she could get a good strategy to escape. She desperately tried to form a strategy in her head, but was coming up blank.

"What?" She snapped at Kyoko, who was looking oddly smug.

"You seem _nervous_, Precious. What is it? What kind of senpai would I be if I let my poor kouhai be this scared and not worry about her, hmm?" She traced the side of Sayaka's face with the back of her fingers patronizingly.

"It's nothing. I'm not nervous. Why do you think I'm nervous?" She tried to play it off cool while batting Kyoko's hands away. Sayaka thought she sounded convincing. Lady seemed to accept it.

There was something about the glint in Kyoko's eyes that implied that she didn't.

There was something in Geisha's steely expression that implied that she didn't either.

"Sango, could I speak with you?" Geisha asked in way that was more ordering to the frazzled girl as she passed by.

"Oh, hi Geisha, yes. What can I help you with?"

"I am wondering why Precious will not be with us in Room B for the night? I cannot imagine that our clients would be overly pleased by her absence. They are fans of her…entertainment." It sounded like Geisha was trying to find a diplomatic way of saying 'getting fucked by Kyoko in front of them'.

"I certainly thought about that, but I think I would be good for Rin to get a bit more variety, you know?" Sango smiled at Sayaka. "Maybe get some new clients who aren't quite as dangerous." She shrugged.

_Oh fuck, you're trying to help me. _

"Hey, I appreciate it, I really do. But I'm happy where I am. I'm happy with-" She gestured to Kyoko.

"You should do it." Kyoko interjected. "She's right. You shouldn't be so reliant on one set of clients. I'm guessing you're going to be getting paid quite a bit by these guys if they're making you wear a special outfit, yeah?" Kyoko looked at Sango.

Sango looked uncomfortable.

"Well, you won't be getting quite as much with this group as you would in Room B, but just try it! It's only for half the night."

"YOU BITCH!" A girl screamed from down the long, narrow room. Sango sighed.

"I should get check on that. You're due in Room A in ten minutes. Have a good night!" Sango sprinted to the source of the commotion. Geisha marched after her.

Sayaka stared at the outfit again. She had no idea what was going on.

She wanted to call Ryo and ask for her advice.

She wanted to call her Mom and ask for advice.

She really needed some advice and she had nowhere to go.

She was _fucked. _

"What's the problem?" Kyoko had a shit-eating grin on her face.

"Why the hell do you look so happy about this?" Sayaka snapped. Kyoko was acting strange and it was not helping her situation at all.

Kyoko took the wig, putting it on her hand to observe the style of it.

"I know a girl…a cop, actually. I never really thought about it, but you and her _really _look alike; it's uncanny even. And she has hair just. Like. This." She twirled the wig. "The only thing that's different about you two is your hair and eyes. Her eyes are just so much _prettier _than yours though." She whispered into Sayaka's ear. Sayaka started to blush.

"Maybe there's just something exciting to me about you being her. Just for tonight." Kyoko nipped her earlobe before quickly pushing herself away. "In any case," She said much more loudly, "You have a good time with these other clients tonight. Mango's right, you need to get out there with other clients more. See you after your private show."

Kyoko sauntered away. Sayaka was embarrassed (and even more embarrassingly, slightly turned on and she had no idea why).

_What the hell was that?_

Geisha walked back towards her quickly and gracefully.

"Someone named 'Nakazawa' booked you in Room A. Does that mean anything to you?" She asked.

"Naka-" _Oh dear fucking GOD no! _"Ah, no, of course not."

"Be honest with me. Is it alright for you to go in there?" She whispered quickly.

"That's a weird question." Sayaka responded, truthfully. Geisha sighed.

"We'll speak later. In the meantime, if this is not safe for you, don't do it. Do you understand?" She continued to whisper. "You don't look like you are feeling well. Do you have a fever?" She asked much more audibly. She pressed the back of her hand to Sayaka's forehead.

"Let me check." Lady pushed Geisha's hand away and felt her forehead. "Seems fine to me. Are you feeling al-"

"FIVE MINUTES LADIES." Tomi yelled.

"You're going to get a nasty penalty if you leave now, especially for a private show. Hurry up, get changed, and just head home after if you're sick." Lady said to Sayaka kindly. She turned to Geisha and sneered "Let's go bitch."

The walked out. Geisha shot her a concerned look back.

Sayaka's heart rate hadn't slowed down, and she doubted it was going to.

She had to put on a show.

* * *

Kyoko walked into Room B, pretending to be much more confident than she actually was.

This was not a crowd she was expecting.

The Kurosawas were there; they were typical. Same with James. Having Miyamoto Tsubasa back was odd, and she had a hard time looking at him without thinking of everything Suki told her.

The one who scared her most was Hideki.

"Oh, you look _fantastic _in that." He nearly growled to her. He held out a wad of notes for her, appearing to be something like 100,000 yen. It was clearly a joke; she would have to give it back to him at the end of the night anyways.

Still, to not raise suspicions, she went over there and started to give the man a lap dance.

He let his hands wander.

"No hands, Hideki." Kurosawa said, clearly displeased by the notion of Kyoko entertaining someone other than him. He didn't say anything though.

He was in just as much shit with the loan shark as she was.

Hideki smiled, seemingly innocently and put his hands in the air as if he were being arrested.

Lady and Geisha arrived with drinks and chicken wings. Geisha also had a pot of green tea, which she immediately served to Tsubasa.

"Ah, it's been too long, hasn't it Geisha?"

"It certainly has." She smiled politely. "Where is your sister? Is she not feeling well?"

The feeling in the room got significantly darker.

"She may not be joining us for a while yet." Tsubasa said tactfully to dismiss the conversation.

"No, I would actually like to hear more about this." Kurosawa prodded.

"Me too." James added.

Hideki just leered at Kyoko.

"Based on the little I know, she will not be joining us for a very long time. It's as simple as that." His tone implied that this was the end of the conversation about Suki.

Kurosawa glared. James shrugged and threw a shot of sake back very impolitely.

"Where's Precious?" The younger Kurosawa asked curiously.

"Double booked. She'll be up in a few hours." Lady said quickly and tersely.

In general, these were clients who got their every request filled here. Not having one of the girls they requested was very, very odd. Kyoko doubted Tomi knew that Sango booked Sayaka in another room.

The thought made her smirk.

Hideki raised an eyebrow at her mistaking the reason behind her amusement, before smirking himself and rolling his hips up so she could feel his growing erection right between her legs.

Her lips twitched in dissatisfaction, but she tried to keep the smile in place.

She could feel Kurosawa glaring at them.

She felt like they were playing some kind of game of tug-o-war over her; she felt like a sex object.

She wasn't sure how she felt about Sayaka coming up to join them.

This was not going to be a good night, she decided.

* * *

Sayaka walked into Room A, pretending to be much more confident than she was. She was going to be penalized for being late.

She had tried putting the wig over top of her wig, but it was just making both of them fall off.

After comparing, she determined that the wig was basically identical to her natural hair, and she just took both wigs off and hid them in her locker.

Her stomach was in knots. She prayed Nakazawa wouldn't recognize her.

She vowed to someday, somehow kick his ass for this.

"Holy shit, dude! She looks _exactly _like your friend!" A young man she had never met exclaimed. She smiled, though it didn't reach her eyes. She had to be professional, after all.

Room A had the same colour scheme as room B, but the layout was different. This room was much less for socializing between the patrons. The stage was clearly in the centre of the room, surrounded by a large, circular couch with a few side tables interspersed along it. There were eight young men in this room and five workers including herself. She recognized all of them, particularly Mei and Lei who looked _suspiciously _like Hitomi in their costumes, but she had never really spoken to any of them.

Of the men, she recognized Nakazawa who was gaping at her.

She was stunned and _incredibly _disappointed to recognize Kyousuke gaping at her too.

Sayaka froze, but forced herself to keep moving almost instantaneously. She had to pretend she was just impersonating herself for a tip, after all.

"That's insane." Nakazawa almost whispered.

"Go on, introduce yourself." Mei prompted. Mei and Lei were seating on either side of Kyousuke, who was making a point of keeping this hands on his lap.

She couldn't ignore the flattery she felt that his eyes were firmly set on her.

"Officer Precious, reporting for duty." She said in a voice that was higher than natural. "I understand someone here has been a very, very bad boy." She put a hand on her hip, sauntering towards the group of guys.

A few guys put up their hands insisting they had been bad. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and proceeded to walk to the nearest one. She used her free hand to hold his chin and make him look her in the eyes, both for dramatic effect and to get him to stop staring at her tits.

"Do you have any _bad _crimes to confess to, boy?" She tried to do a purse her lips sexually. She felt ridiculous, but he didn't seem to notice.

"I stole a candy bar from a convenience store when I was eight." He shrugged sheepishly. The room laughed. She lightly slapped him.

"What a bad, bad boy. What am I going to do with you?" She asked, leaning over him and giving him a good view of her chest. The longer she could stay away from Kyousuke and Nakazawa who were on the other side of the room, the better.

"I've been bad! I've been bad too!" A friend a few seats away piped up. She was hesitant to go over there, but also glad because she had no idea where she was going with the scene she had built there.

"What's your crime, boy?" She asked, sauntering over.

"I was looking at naughty photos of you."

The crowd, aside from Nakazawa and Kyousuke jeered. She resisted the urge to shudder.

"That's hardly a crime. They're easy to find." The traced his jawline with her finger before reaching down and grabbing some of the small notes out of his hand. The boys gaped at the response.

"Oh Officer Precious!" Mei sounded like she was a bad actress calling for help from the leading man in a movie. "I need help Officer Precious!"

Sayaka was going to go with this. She hadn't thought out her act very far.

"Officer Precious, my boyfriend Kamiju-"

"Kamijou" Nakazawa corrected.

"_Our _boyfriend" Lei interjected. Mei looked ready to slap the other one.

"_Our _boyfriend Kamij_ou _has made a _miraculous _recovery and we want to celebrate for him! But neither me nor my twin sister want to let go of him, and _someone _needs to dance for him."

The room cheered, including Nakazawa this time. Kyousuke still seemed uncomfortable.

She and Kyousuke looked at each other. He was staring at her eyes intently.

"Just the eyes…" He whispered to himself. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes.

"Well, that just won't do for a good, law-abiding citizen to not get his just reward, now will it?" She said. She swayed her hips as she walked over the iPod that was connected to the speakers.

She could feel his eyes watching her as she walked. Usually, when men at the club did that it was either a slight nuisance or degrading.

With Kyousuke, there was something _empowering _about it. She felt sexy and desirable.

There were plenty of song with heavy beats and trashy lyrics to choose from. She knew she should pick one of those songs; something a typical stripper would be expected to do.

At the same time, all of the employees here knew the songs she tended to pick; songs that had a bit more of a classical edge to them.

She never thought about how Kyousuke might have inspired that. She looked over her shoulder to see him still watching her, ignoring the copies of his girlfriend sitting on either side of him in favour of her. She suppressed the shiver that threatened to move down her spine.

She felt bits of sweat prickling the pores of her skin. She was nervous, and yet she was excited. She was going to dance for Kyousuke.

She felt like she was going to have to apologize to Hitomi after this.

She picked a song without lyrics. This one had a smooth beat and a saxophone and violin that played a sultry, beautiful duet. She adjusted her hat to try to make sure it would stay on her head.

The room went still and quiet. All she could hear was the beginning of the song, her heels as they clacked onto the stage, and her steadying heartbeat.

All she could see was Kyousuke's stormy grey eyes watching her with rapt attention.

All she could feel was the blood rushing to her cheeks, and power starting to trickle from her core. It felt like her magic was leaking from her.

She could tell that's what it was when she grasped the pole. She was able to lift herself up and go inverted with almost no physical exertion at all. The room gasped at this.

She quickly learned she was more flexible than she was before too. She was easily able to split her legs and connect her toes to the back of her head. She was so much stronger than her body didn't even slide down the pole a bit.

She was stronger. She was more flexible. She was more graceful.

She closed her eyes and focused on the feeling of Kyousuke's gaze on her.

She was more beautiful.

She continued to effortlessly move her body along to pole, doing spins, inverts, slides, and twirls. The rotating metal accentuated her physical form all the more, making her feel like she was flying.

There were a few points she was almost worried the speed she was making the pole spin at would make it break from the ceiling, but it was well anchored.

She landed softly, rolling towards him and facing him. She traced her fingers up her body, not breaking eye contact with him.

The song seemed to end too soon. She was breathless, but not because of physical exertion. There was something in Kyousuke's eyes; something lustful.

She had never seen that. He had never had a look like that for her.

She wondered if he had that look for Rin or for her.

She crawled over to him slowly and seductively.

_He's the guest of honour tonight. It's my job to do this. If I didn't, it would be suspicious. _She rationalized.

"Do you have any crimes to confess to?" She asked softly. She worried that she let her voice fall to a pitch that was too naturally hers. His breath seemed to hitch when she asked him that.

"I fantasize about my best friend who looks just like you when I'm with my girlfriend. A lot."

That look was for _her_.

She opened her mouth to speak, but she didn't know what to say. She reached out to him, not sure where she was going with it, but it felt so natural and _right_. It was something she had suppressed wanting for _years_. Both of them seemed to be leaning into each other.

"Gentlemen, I am so sorry to interrupt you all!" Tomi exclaimed apologetically from the doorway. "I'm afraid there was an error made in the scheduling of our employees. Officer Precious should be in another room right now. In return, we have two other lovely ladies who will entertain you and a bottle of sake on the house."

Sweetie and a violet-haired girl came in carrying the bottle and the small glasses, smiling politely. Most of the room's patrons cheered at the free alcohol and extra attractive bodies in the room.

She was both frustrated and thrilled by Kyousuke's look of utter disappointment.

"Be good, boys. I don't want to hear about any disturbances down here." She said in her higher pitched tone, bidding them adieu. Nakazawa got up and rushed to follow her.

"Hang on a second, can I see something?" He asked quickly.

"She needs to go to another room _now _sir." Tomi insisted impatiently.

"I get it, just a second." He gently held her left arm to inspect it. Sayaka bristled. If he was going to be checking for needle marks…

And then she remembered. A few years ago, they had gotten into a fight with a dealer. She had gotten a nasty scar on the back of her left forearm from when she fell on the cement, having been thrown down and beaten. She'd needed to get seven stitches for it. It was faded now, but if you knew where to look for it, there was no way you could miss it.

He was sliding the black material of her long-sleeves gloves down her elbow. A trace of the outside of the scar was visible.

Tomi grabbed Nakazawa's hand, not forcefully enough to hurt but enough to make a point.

"No one touches the girls. Anyone who violates that rule will be thrown out. Understood?" He had a firm expression on his face; it was so different from the cowardly visage he usually wore in front of the clients in room B.

Nakazawa let go.

"Of course sir. I apologize."

Tomi led her upstairs to go to room B. Nakazawa watched them go, before eventually rejoining the party he had arrived with.

"Uh, Tomi can I quickly get changed?"

"You're fine with what you have. They want you now. Have a good shift." He opened the door and forcefully pushed her in the room, closing the door behind her. She felt like she had just been sealed in a cage full of hungry lions.

"I'll be damned. You look _just _like Sapphire." Tsubasa said in awe.

* * *

Kyoko had to admit that Sayaka never ceased to amaze her. She just walked into a room full of the most dangerous criminals in Kazamino in a cop outfit dressed as herself.

That girl had balls.

"Who's that?" Sayaka played dumb.

Thankfully, Sayaka's presence had helped lessen the tension in the room significantly, because everyone here was stupid and assumed she didn't know anything about anything. It was painfully frustrating how dumb everyone else was.

Kurosawa 'informed' Tomi that he was not impressed that Sayaka had been put in another room. Being Hideki's bitch must have been causing him some psychological trauma so he had to make up for it by being a total ass to Tomi and Kyoko.

Kyoko was experiencing some psychological trauma from all of these assholes.

Maybe that was why she was getting so much enjoyment out of playing this cat and mouse game with Sayaka.

"No one important." Kyoko shrugged off the question on behalf of the others in the room. Besides, in the long run it was in her best interest if Sayaka's cover remained intact.

"I would have to disagree with that. She was one of the girls who was selected as a target a few years ago. As it turns out, in a 'brave story of redemption" Tsubasa was sneering "she became a police officer and got three of our best arrested."

"Was it bad luck that she was there, or did the famous, acclaimed Miyamoto management have a problem with a rat?" Hideki grinned. Tsubasa's and Kurosawa's mouths twitched downwards.

"We both had the same problem in New Mitakihara. It is being dealt with." Tsubasa replied curtly. Kurosawa nodded grimly. There were a few moments of awkward silence.

Kyoko studied Sayaka intently. Sayaka said nothing and her face appeared to be impassive. However, she was sure that her mind was racing about this mysterious problem in New Mitakihara that Kyoko herself was not aware of. It frustrated Kyoko too; she was _convinced _they would have thought therewas a rat at the club, but now there was some scapegoat in New Mitakihara getting the blame. Kyoko took a deep breath and counted to ten. She couldn't let them know about Sayaka; not yet. They needed to find out they had a problem with a rat, and then she could hand Sayaka over to them on a silver platter; then she would get more 'compensation' to deal with the church, and that will be two problems gone. She just had to wait. _Just a bit more; just a bit more. _

Kyoko wondered how many times Sayaka did this: stayed silent, pretending to not know or care about her surroundings while she tried to process and memorize everything around her. How many operations had she already fucked up for Kyoko's clients?

"Can you take that wig off, Precious? The outfit's fine, but I don't like the hair. It doesn't look like you." Fusao requested politely.

Kyoko had to keep herself from bursting out laughing and screaming at everyone in the room. They were so stupid it was actually painful. How could no one else see it? She was _literally _right in front of them!

But that was it: she had never seen it either. She should have, there were so many signs there, and she hadn't seen a single one until it was too late and she lost what may have been her only saviour. Kyoko didn't care what Tsubasa said; she didn't believe that their new business was going to get off the ground without Suki.

"No, no. I like this. I want her to stay like that." Tsubasa said. James nodded.

"This would be a good time for a show, I think. I wouldn't mind seeing Precious role play as our _favourite _officer with the good old KPD." James sneered.

"Oh, I'd quite like to see that. In honour of Atahiko, of course. Precious, would you mind? We'll tip you extra. It will be just a _bit _rougher than usual." Tsubasa promised.

She noticed Sayaka take a sharp intake of breath.

"Of course. I'm always happy to put on a show." Her smile seemed sweet, but Kyoko was convinced it was dripping with insincerity. Sayaka went over to the stage and sat down, looking at Kyoko in a silent way of beckoning her to join her.

Kyoko wasn't sure how to feel about this.

"What is it, Koko? Don't you want to put on a show?" James goaded. "That's not like you."

Sayaka looked at her sympathetically and walked over to her.

"It's okay if you don't want to do a show." _She's sounding like me now. _"But I'm okay with being her for you. Just for tonight." Sayaka whispered to her.

Kyoko's eyes widened in shock. She hadn't been expecting something like that. She didn't welcome to excited reaction stirring from the bottom of her core at those words of pure consent from the natural blunette either.

Sayaka took her hand and gently pulled her towards the stage, artificially coloured eyes never leaving her own.

"Only the eyes…" Kyoko muttered to herself. She could see traces of a blush underneath the layers of makeup Sayaka was wearing, but she smiled bashfully. Kyoko felt trusted; it was an oddly nice feeling.

The younger Kurosawa made a noncommittal noise, clearly not overly excited to see 'Rin' dressed as someone else. Sayaka's face twitched and she swallowed nervously, legs clenching together unintentionally.

And then Kyoko remembered why this girl was here, and why she was doing this.

Her mood darkened, and her face reflected it.

She pushed Sayaka forcefully onto the stage, knocking the girl on her back.

"Kyo-"

"Shut up." She ordered harshly. She could feel the excitement from the sadistic members of the crowd who had a personal grudge against Sayaka.

She could feel her own sadistic excitement, and she had her own personal grudge against Sayaka.

"Lady, get the kit."

"_The _kit?" Lady was surprised. It wasn't often that they brought that out, but what the hell; she was going to give the audience a show they were going to remember for the rest of their lives.

She was going to put on a show Sayaka would never, ever forget; maybe she would finally get a clue and get the fuck out.

Knowing the utter lack of self-preservation this girl seems to have though, probably not.

"Yeah. _The _kit."

"Uh, what kit is this?" Sayaka was starting to sound hesitant.

"You'll find out. Now _shut. Up._"

Kyoko crashed her mouth to Sayaka's, dominating and violent. She was sure Sayaka could probably feel her fang more than she could feel her tongue.

She pinned the undercover to the stage beneath her, forcefully pushing a leg between the girl's own. She held Sayaka's wrists in one hand, not worrying about her being able to get them free if she wanted to. Kyoko used her other hand to wander down to the open space between her legs; Sayaka gasped into Kyoko's mouth. Kyoko was surprised too.

The girl was really, really wet.

"You perverted girl; you like this?" Kyoko slid two fingers in thrusting them in and out slowly. "You are such a _slut_, aren't you?"

Sayaka's blush was very apparent, and her expression was a combination of embarrassment and hurt. _You deserve it. _

"Got iiiit." Lady sing-songed as she re-entered, leaving an unlabelled black box by Kyoko's feet before going back to the couch to rejoin James.

Kyoko could feel Sayaka trying to twist her head to look at the box, but she wasn't able to see past Kyoko's red ponytail. Kyoko was attacking her neck, leaving love bites and actual bite marks behind.

Sayaka squeaked when a particularly hard bite drew blood. Kyoko wondered if she should be concerned by how much she loved the taste of salt and iron on her tongue.

"This is always so one-sided." Kyoko growled out. She got up, leaving Sayaka on her back to catch her breath. Kyoko pulled down the black thong she was wearing and pulled the short skirt up just a bit; she really didn't have to do much. Sayaka's eye widened, but she quickly swallowed and nodded, understanding what she was being commanded to do.

Kyoko exhaled with pleasure when she felt Sayaka's tongue against her. It was obvious that Sayaka had never done this for another girl before, but she was trying to mimic Kyoko's style which was generally a good way to go about it.

"Nnng." Kyoko grinded her hips down against Sayaka's face, using the pole behind her to keep herself up. She looked down, getting an admittedly sick sense of pleasure seeing the bitch on her knees between her legs.

She hated the way those overly bright emerald eyes were looking at her, seeking approval as she tried the different letters of the alphabet.

_Just the eyes… _

"Hang on." Kyoko pushed Sayaka away, making the girl tumble backwards. Kyoko hurriedly picked up the black box, digging through the various items in there. One of them was a curved, thick hard one she looked forward to using later. In the meantime, she would be happy with the long piece of black satin that was thicker in the middle and shaped like goggles.

"C'mere." Kyoko pulled Sayaka up by the front of the black tube top she was wearing, making her breasts threaten to spill out. Kyoko hurriedly tied the blindfold around her eyes; the ribbon on the back of Sayaka's head looked perfect, just like the ribbon she regularly wore in her own hair.

"Keep going." She growled, pulling the girl back in to her crotch. "By the way, do an 'x'." It was unfortunate having a good letter so far down in the alphabet. Sayaka complied and Kyoko couldn't keep the relieved smile off her face.

_It's been way, way too long. _

* * *

Sayaka had to admit that Kyoko never ceased to confuse her.

She could understand why Kyoko hated Rin, but she didn't understand what _she _had done to deserve the harsh treatment. Well, yes there was plenty she had done, but she didn't think that Kyoko knew the extent of it. It didn't feel like it was all for show. It felt personal.

But hell, it felt good.

Just two days ago, she'd felt powerless during sex. Even now, she felt uncomfortable taking part in this in front of him.

Kyoko was right; she had been wet. But most of that was because of Kyousuke. Some it was because of Kyoko. This time, she had her identity and she was with someone she didn't think was somehow behind dozens of the worst crimes in Kazamino.

She was with people who wanted _her. _

She tried her best to please Kyoko; after all, she was right; their shows always were very one-sided. She'd been here for a few months and had never gone down on Kyoko once. She wasn't sure what she thought about the taste, but she could handle it. The main problem she actually had was breathing; Kyoko wasn't giving her many chances to.

She could hear every breath Kyoko took; they were surprisingly feminine. She wondered if anyone else could hear the quick, steady rhythm of high pitched inhales and exhales or if it was only her; they weren't loud, but they were all she could hear.

Her other senses were so much stronger with her sight gone. Sayaka let her fingertips trace the inside of Kyoko's thighs. Kyoko's skin was soft, but she could feel the solid muscle definition that she must need for dancing like she does. It got progressively warmer to further up her fingers went.

Kyoko let out a quiet mewling sound that Sayaka didn't even know the hot-headed girl could make when her fingers (embarrassingly) struggled to find her clit. In Sayaka's defense, she couldn't freaking see.

Kyoko ended up guiding her fingers away and did it herself while Sayaka dutifully continued with her tongue.

"S-Saya-" Kyoko whispered so quietly she was sure she was the only one who heard it.

Something just for her.

Sayaka nearly fell backwards when Kyoko shoved her hips down and groaned. She could feel Kyoko clench around her tongue.

_Did she just-? _

Kyoko was panting hard, having those beautiful high-pitched inhales.

_Woohoo! I did it! _

Sayaka smiled up at Kyoko, though she couldn't tell if Kyoko was even looking at her. The room cheered, which made her proud feeling come crashing down.

"Now for the good part." Kyoko growled out lowly.

* * *

Kyoko pushed Sayaka off and rooted through the box again. She didn't want to let the cunt get off the hook that easily.

She noticed Sayaka moving her hands up to untie the ribbon.

"We're not done yet." She chided. She pulled Sayaka's hands behind her and fastened them together with a pair of handcuffs. Kyoko wasn't sure if the key was still in the kit or not. They would just have to find that out later.

Sayaka experimented, trying to pull her hands apart.

"Uh, Koko what's in that-"

"All sorts of things to punish _bad _girls."

Kyoko did her best to ignore the excited leers from the audience.

"Is there a safe word or something?" She whispered back hurriedly.

_Traitor. Liar. Whore. Bitch. _

"Sapphire." Kyoko whispered back before fastening a red ball gag in the girl's mouth.

Kyoko pulled up the mini skirt and pulled down the thong that had always been superfluous in that outfit; Kyoko knew, she had worn the cop costume before.

"And bad _cops _deserve the worst punishment." Kyoko smiled. She pushed Sayaka forward so she was on her knees with her chest on the ground. She was completely vulnerable. Kyoko could see that above the blindfold, Sayaka's eyebrows were furrowed with worry.

Kyoko wasn't sure how she felt about Sayaka. She wasn't sure she could use the word 'hate', or even 'strongly dislike', though she felt she had every reason to. Still, it didn't mean that she necessarily wanted to cause the girl serious grievous harm.

Just a bit of grievous harm was all.

"Remember the safe word." She whispered. It seemed to calm the girl who nodded slightly.

Sayaka nearly jumped when Kyoko brought the leather flogger down on her ass. Kyoko was surprised by the girl's strength; it was hard to keep her down. She knew it wasn't the pain that startled her; probably more the sound. Over her years at Tomi's, Kyoko had become a professional at using floggers and whips in a way that would make loud, painful sounds but not actually hurt that much. Kyoko brought it down again.

"Three for Suki." She flogged her once more. "Three for Atahiko." Three more. "Any for Megumi?" She asked the crowd.

"Nah, he doesn't deserve any." James said. "But feel free to keep flogging."

Kyoko stared down at the girl. She decided to do one last hard slap, and she made sure to make this one hurt. Sayaka made a startled sound. _One for me. _

Kyoko threw the flogger behind her and ran her hand soothingly over the reddened flesh. Sayaka was flushed, whether from humiliation or excitement Kyoko wasn't sure, but she looked okay.

"Now for the grand finale…" Kyoko whispered to Sayaka. She reached back and pulled it out.

The bright red vibrating double-ended strap-on was Kyoko's alone and never used. She'd had a stage partner three years ago and they planned on doing a show like this for Kurosawa and the Miyamotos; her partner was an idiot and got pregnant with a powerful client's kid, and was paid to disappear. So the strap-on never came out until today. And she couldn't have thought of a better partner to try it out with.

There were some things Kyoko was not willing to share with the other employees. This was one of them.

Kyoko gasped as she put the shorter end inside herself; the part outside fit perfectly against her clit. She fastened a few straps to keep it from falling out.

The longer end stuck forward proudly, and was ready for the unsuspecting blue-haired cop on the ground of front of it.

"I'm about to put something inside of you." Kyoko whispered. She didn't want to give the whole surprise away. Sayaka nodded hesitantly.

Kyoko wasn't sure if kissing the back of Sayaka's shoulder blades tenderly was appropriate given the reality of their relationship, but it felt like the right thing to do as she guided the longer end in. She was sure that Sayaka had been wet enough. Sayaka groaned.

Kyoko experimented and thrust in and out and bit. Short, quick thrusts would definitely feel better for her to grind against the front part. She figured she should be kind (though she didn't particularly _want _to be) and let Sayaka adjust.

When it moved more easily and Sayaka wasn't grunting every time she moved, Kyoko reached down and turned on the vibrator full blast. Both girls jolted; one from surprise and one from ecstasy.

Kyoko grinded against Sayaka much harder and faster now. She felt great. This was so, so much better than doing something on her own, or doing it with _Precious_. It was so much easier to believe that this was Sayaka.

She shouldn't want this to be with Sayaka, but she did.

They ended up practically lying down on the ground, hips only slightly elevated. This made it easier for Kyoko to bite and leave hickeys all over Sayaka. She wanted the girl to have a visual reminder for _days_ about what they did. She wanted to Sayaka to remember who she _really _belonged to.

Kyoko was grateful for her superhuman strength because it was the only way she could keep going without using either hand as leverage. One hand twisted Sayaka's nipple, making the girl squirm. The other hand played with her clit; she wanted Sayaka to be humiliated by how much she _loved _this.

Sayaka was moaning and drooling around the gag; she looked like a mess. Her moans sounded so much more sincere this time than the echoes down the hall had two days before. The thought made Kyoko grin smugly.

_That's right. You love this. You're MINE._

She loved the possessive feeling of being in control; she hadn't felt like this in way too long. And here she had a beautiful, unsuspecting girl whose life was literally in her hands and letting her do whatever she wanted with her body; Kyoko planned to take full advantage of that.

_If only you knew that I know what I know._

Kyoko was close again. The pressure was building up, getting warmer and warmer, stronger and stronger.

Sayaka evidently was closer than she was, based on the way she practically screamed into the gag and thrusted back against her. Her body shivered underneath Kyoko's.

_So close, so close, I'm so close. _

Sayaka continued to squirm. Kyoko pulled her hand away from her clit and grabbed her arm, trying to anchor herself and keep Sayaka a bit more still.

"Saa-fffrrr" She groaned into the gag. "Saa-ffrrr" She tried pulling away.

_Just a bit more, just a bit more. _

Sayaka's brows were contorted in discomfort. She was trying to move away. Kyoko had to work a bit harder to get it to go in. Kyoko held her arm and breast tightly to keep her in place. The pleasure grew into a promise of ecstasy. It was almost at its apex.

"Saaa-fffrrr!"

An explosion of sensation wracked Kyoko from the bottom of her core, spreading rapidly and powerfully through her thighs and core. She practically spasmed from how _amazing _it felt.

Or rather, she did spasm.

_CRACK. _

Sayaka screeched in pain into the gag. Kyoko's high immediately plummeted as she looked at the girl beneath her. Kyoko pulled her hands away to see what happened.

Sayaka's right arm was dislocated and swelling fast.

* * *

Sayaka kicked Kyoko off and tried to get away. It was hard when that _thing _was still inside of her and still buzzing. All she had needed was for Kyoko to give her a break, for just a few goddamn _seconds. _That was _it._

And now there was pain shooting through her right arm. Her poor arm had really been getting a beating over the past few weeks.

"Get off of her." Geisha commanded harshly, pushing Kyoko back, evidently being mindful of whatever was inside of her. She felt the gag and blindfold fall from her face.

She hadn't realized that she had tears in her eyes. She wasn't even sure what those had come from; pain or pleasure. Up until the end, it had felt _so _good.

"Where are the keys?" Geisha asked quickly. Sayaka turned her head around to see what the thing inside of her had been.

Her eyes widened to see a strap-on connected to Kyoko, who was digging around inside the box for the key. She blushed furiously.

Her arm protested at her movement. It didn't hurt as bad as she thought having a broken arm would, but she still cringed.

_If everyone would leave me alone for a goddamn second I can fix it. _She just knew her magic could mend it perfectly within seconds.

"I think it's broken." Geisha said matter-of-factly. "That sound was not good and it's swelling very fast. We need to take you to a hospital immediately.

Sayaka could feel that the bone was indeed broken; something about her magic told her that her arm was misaligned, beyond just being out of the socket. Her magic also told her she could fix this easily on her own.

"I'll be fine, just get these handcuffs off."

Geisha complied and was using the blindfold to make a splint with a riding crop. Sayaka resisted the urge to laugh immaturely. It occurred to her that she should be more concerned about her current situation, but she just knew this wasn't a big deal. Her magic would make her fine.

Lady entered the room frantically, followed by Sango and Tomi.

"What happened this time?" Tomi sounded exasperated.

"This one wasn't us, it was Koko." James pointed at Kyoko who looked like she felt terrible. Sayaka was annoyed with the girl to say the least, but she wasn't angry. She was glad that she at least felt guilty though.

With all of the commotion, no one was really paying attention to her. She pushed her arm back in place and squeezed where the bones were broken. She felt a cool, refreshing sensation as the bones mended back together within seconds. She pulled off the makeshift splint constructed by bondage toys.

"All employees in my office _now._" Tomi ordered, marching out of the room. The group of young women followed him. Sayaka rolled her shoulder a few times to try it out. It felt fine.

"Let me see your arm." Sango said as soon as they entered Tomi's office. Tomi combed his fingers through his thinning hair in exasperation. Sango's jaw dropped.

"Her arm looks fine."

Geisha blinked in surprise and moved forward to look at it. There was no swelling or bruising. Of course not; Sayaka had just fixed it.

"But how…"

"I think it was just the lighting. It looked worse than it was. I'm fine, really." Sayaka shrugged.

"No, I saw your shoulder, it was popped out! Like your arm wasn't connected!" Sayaka only realized then that Lady looked incredibly pale. She must be more squeamish than she thought.

She thought of a lie on the spot.

"That actually happens a lot. I hurt myself playing baseball when I was a kid and it pops out pretty easily. I'm used to it. I can just pop it back in on my own."

Lady shuddered. The rest of them, including Kyoko just gaped on her.

"That doesn't change the fact that Kyoko ignored the safe word." Geisha criticized.

"You did _what? _You know what, this hasn't been working out. This hasn't been working out at all. Sakura, Yamasaki, I don't want you two working together anymore. And Yamasaki, you should focus on building up clients outside of room B." Tomi ordered.

"What? No! It's fine, it's not that big a deal. I like working with Kyoko, really!" Sayaka insisted. She looked to Kyoko for back up. She couldn't read the girl's expression.

"Yes, it's a big deal. I don't want any clients, even them, thinking that that kind of thing is alright here. You're too much of an easy target. I don't want you in there."

"Why are you punishing me because of her?" Sayaka screamed. This was bad. Ryo was going to kill her for losing this. "They're great clients! The tips are incredible! And Fusao-san _really _likes me. Wasn't it a problem for them not having me there for just an hour?"

Tomi tensed. She was right.

"What if we paired Yamasaki with Geisha?" Sango suggested. "Geisha seems to be better with watching over Yamasaki than Sakura is."

_Geisha's never THERE. _

"No, no, Kyoko's always here. I'm happy with Kyoko, really."

"Tomi, we can kill two birds with one stone." Sango was saying quietly to Tomi, but everyone could hear it. "There has been pressure from numerous clients to bring Geisha in more, and this way we have a good reason staffing-wise to do so. We should pair them up."

Tomi looked like he was considering it.

"The employees are going to have a fit." Lady promised. "We don't want the client-stealer back."

Geisha tensed slightly, but one had to look closely to notice it.

"I want to work with Kyoko." Sayaka said firmly.

"Precious, why don't we talk about this later? I think this would be a good idea for _both _of us." Geisha said quietly.

"No, I want to work with Kyoko." She replied loudly. _I have to keep my way in. I have to keep my way in. _

"I'm fine working with her if she's fine sticking with me." Kyoko added. Sayaka still couldn't tell what the girl was thinking.

"I'm not listening to you right now." Tomi pointed at Kyoko accusingly.

"Just think about it, Rin. I think it would be a good thing." Sango insisted.

"No! I-" Geisha put a firm hand on her shoulder.

"Let's talk about this later." She said firmly. Sayaka could tell arguing wouldn't get her anywhere.

Tomi sighed and rubbed his temples.

"Yamasaki, I want you to go home for the rest of the night, just in case your arm is injured. I won't penalize you for this or being late earlier. You're a great employee, but I need to think about this. Listen to Sango and think about it. Everyone else, get back to work."

Sayaka stammered indignantly. Tomi gave her a hard look. She slouched her shoulders in resignation and left, adjusting her hat that had gotten skewed at some point.

She knew Geisha was a client stealer and had other clients beyond Miyamoto. She couldn't work with her. She _couldn't _lose her way in.

She hid as she put the blonde wig back on and got changed into casual clothes. She felt silly getting _more _dressed up to leave.

"Precious." Geisha said softly, but firmly from around a corner. Sayaka was just about to head out.

"Yes, Geisha?" Sayaka wasn't even trying to be civil. Geisha sighed.

"We should talk about this more later. In any case, here." She handed Sayaka an envelope. Sayaka raised an eyebrow, looking inside. The envelope and her jaw fell to the ground.

There was over 1,000,000 yen in there.

"Your tips from room A and B tonight. Have a good night. Hopefully a good night's sleep will be beneficial for you." Geisha nodded and left. "We'll speak more later." She promised.

Sayaka went home and flopped backwards on her bed. She fell asleep quickly, having a surprisingly erotic dream about a threesome with Kyoko and Kyousuke. She dreamt that the contrast between Kyousuke's gentleness and Kyoko's passion was just _incredible. _

She was rudely awakened by her work phone.

"Hello?" She groaned, looking at the clock. It was 8:32 am. She wasn't supposed to have work this morning.

"I need you to come in immediately Miki. You have some visitors. Don't waste time." Ryo said curtly before hanging up. Sayaka was too groggy to understand everything, but got up and got changed. She didn't bother having a shower.

Had she been thinking, she might have put on a scarf.

She yawned the entire train ride to work. The black trench coat was becoming like a second layer of skin quickly.

She walked into the station at 8:55. She felt like a zombie.

Eito, one of the other newer officers who was at her birthday party smirked when he saw her.

"Had a good night, eh Miki?" He grinned.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" She yawned.

He pointed to a window that had a reflective surface. She looked.

She went beet red and woke up immediately.

Her neck was a minefield of hickeys, bite marks, and bruises. _Son of a bitch! Goddammit Kyoko! _

Eito laughed. A few of the other officers hollered. She tried to find something to use as a scarf or a covering.

"Miki, get inside my office now." Ryo ordered. Some of the officers made mocking "Ooooooh" sounds. She quickly ran towards her desk, hoping she'd left a scarf there.

"NOW MIKI." She winced and walked to the office right away.

Ayumi deliberately bumped into her and passed her a pink scarf she had been wearing.

"Thank you!" Sayaka mouthed to her, throwing it on.

She walked into the office.

"Close the door, Miki." Ryo ordered. She did.

She looked and saw two people in neatly pressed blazers. One of them was a man who looked about ready to retire. Another was a younger woman holding a large coffee, definitely older than Sayaka but significantly younger than the man. She had very short cropped black hair, red-rimmed glasses and bee-stung lips. Sayaka squinted at the woman, realizing that she was incredibly familiar.

"Miki, these two are from the federal bureau, special victims unit. It sounds like they have been working on Tomi's for some time now and would like to speak with you." Ryo said seriously. Sayaka gaped like a fish out of water.

"Geisha?"

The woman's superior snorted. Geisha made a disgusted look.

"I think we can both agree that we have to do things on the field we would rather not discuss here with our superiors. It's nice to meet you in a more professional setting, Detective Miki. I'm Agent Akemi Chiyo."

* * *

**AN:**

Well folks, I think it is safe to say that this story is about 50% complete now; huzzah! We are past part I and are now firmly established in part II of II or III! Thank you once again to my magical beta, the MagicalGay for awesome edits and story help. MagicalGay is the real MVP!

At long last, Geisha/Agent Akemi Chiyo is fully introduced. On a scale of one to ten, how obvious was it that Geisha was an undercover too? I want to make one thing clear: Agent Akemi Chiyo is the same Chiyo that went to interview the Sakura family in Kyoko's flashback in chapter five, and that is going to be very important later on. I never wanted that to be a secret, and I figure since that was a fairly minute-seeming detail over 100 pages back, it might be easy for people to forget. And if anyone is curious about any…relations she may have, I urge you to venture back to chapter 3 to see Sayaka's original description of her. Chapter 3 was basically all foreshadow for a lot of the big plot lines.

This is getting more and more fun to write now that the story has been completely set up; it feels like major plot points are flowing a lot more freely now. Within twenty pages, Sayaka became a magical girl and healed Kyousuke! Ah, it feels good to get things out faster! Kyoko was supposed to find out about Sayaka being undercover at the end of chapter three, and it ended up being at the end of chapter six. But oh well; there were a lot of plots that I hadn't included before (e.g. Kyoko originally wasn't going to be a criminal, there were no problems with the church and Sayaka wasn't a former addict; that's like eighty percent of the story right there).

I'm curious to know what people think about Sayaka's wish and powers. I know in the anime, she always made the same wish; I just couldn't imagine her making that particular wish at this stage in her life. I also had her outfit change a bit, because I feel like someone older wouldn't be silly enough to pick a fabric outfit for battle (I never understood that). Lastly, and arguably most importantly, Yuma's wish has already made her a healer. Sayaka had to have something else then.

Also, please don't be afraid to leave critique about the BDSM/hate sex!

Yuma is getting to be so, so much fun to write! I'm tempted to have a Yuma's POV chapter in the future (the very, very distant future mind you). But Yuma's definitely going to be playing a more active role in the next few chapters for both characters.

Also, I firmly promise that things are going to start looking better for Kyoko next chapter, even if they're in weird ways. But they will! Also, this chapter was very Sayaka-heavy (sorry to the folks who don't like Sayaka much), but I think it will even out more next time.

Thanks for reading!

-Don'tKillKenny


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Sayaka stared at the woman in front of her in a combination of awe and disbelief. She was sure she didn't look particularly intelligent, nor was she feeling it; she had genuinely had no idea.

"I apologize for not telling you sooner. You seemed to have built such a…_successful _cover and I did not want to do anything to jeopardize it." Geisha, or rather Chiyo, said calmly. Sayaka could notice the faint hints of a blush painting the stoic woman's cheeks. Sayaka's face went beet red.

_Oh dear GOD this woman's seen me-_

"As I said before, we both have to do things on the field we do not need to discuss here." She cut off Sayaka's mortified thoughts curtly. "If anything, I respect your devotion and the information you have managed to gather. In just over two months, you have gathered more significant information than I have in over three years. You should be proud of yourself." She smiled, but it didn't seem completely genuine.

"I will speak in my agent's defense to say that she's only there once every two weeks; it's not easy to get good information with that." Her superior said. He voice croaked a bit; he looked and sounded like he maybe should have retired a few years ago. He had massive crow's feet and a face that reminded her of a basset hound.

"Why aren't you there more often then? It seems like it's been our staff taking all the risks." Ryo narrowed his eyes. "Why should we work with you now?"

Sayaka was surprised at her boss's open hostility. She would have thought he would be happy to be working with federal agents; that seemed like a dream come true!

Geisha let out a restrained sigh.

"That was my fault. I had been there more often before. At first, we went in because we had heard rumours of there being underage prostitution and child labour. It wasn't long before we found out just how many activities worth monitoring there that there were."

"Corrupted politicians making bribes, drug lords talking about shipments, traffickers looking for victims, assassins being hired, even serial killers on the prowl." Her boss closed his eyes with resignation. He seemed tired.

"Serial killers?" Sayaka was stunned. She had never heard of _that _being a problem; from what she had heard, Tomi's was a pretty safe place to work.

She took careful note of the dirty look Chiyo sent her boss.

"In any case," She cleared her throat. "There were plenty of suspects to monitor. I suppose I had a different…approach let's say to interacting with clients so I had managed to be fairly popular amongst them. For a number of months, I was working almost five nights and week and brining in significant information every night. However-"

"The others tried to get you fired for stealing clients." Sayaka finished for her with wide eyes. She understood now. Chiyo nodded solemnly.

There was something about Chiyo's disposition; she seemed mysterious. Sayaka got the distinct impression she and her partner, boss, whatever he was, had their own agenda that they weren't sharing. However, she didn't seem like a bad or particularly unfriendly person either.

Sayaka was convinced that she was related to Homura somehow.

"Now, we have an opportunity to bring me back in more consistently and it may lessen the pressure on Detective Miki on the field."

"My detective is fine. She's been working on her own there for two months, she doesn't need you now." Ryo snapped harshly. Sayaka wanted to pull him out of the room and ask him what the hell his problem was.

"Really?" Geisha sounded impassive, but Sayaka could sense some hostility. "Who brought your detectiveto the hospital in the middle of the night after she got a concussion? Did you believe there was anyway that could have been done without blowing her cover? I respect Miki's devotion and results, but you have to understand that she's still quite new and a vulnerable agent to send in."

"Hey!" Sayaka was getting pissed now. If this was how federals always spoke to the municipals, she could understand why Ryo hated them so much.

"I apologize Detective Miki, I did not mean any disrespect to you. I do have issues with how this operation has been run, but none of them have been your fault."

"I'm good at my job!"

"You have potential, I am not arguing that."

"No, I don't just have potential. I'm _good_. You said so yourself. I've gotten more information in two months than you've had in three years." Sayaka glared.

Sayaka felt reassured by Ryo's proud smile sent in her direction.

"At what cost though, Miki?" Geisha looked at her coolly.

Sayaka felt like she had just been slapped in the face.

"Akemi." Geisha's superior stated simply; he had no bite in his tone. He just said her name.

It seemed to reel her in.

"I apologize. I have been working on this assignment for many years now. This is not very constructive." She looked away as if something in the corner of the room had caught her interest. "Detective Miki has done a much better job at maintaining positive relationships with the other staff than I have. As well…" She trailed off, looking to her superior.

The old man looked at Ryo and mouthed him a question: "Can anyone hear us?"

Ryo raised an eyebrow, intrigued. He shook his head. The old man nodded to Chiyo.

"We noticed that this operation you're running isn't being tracked."

Sayaka was confused. Again.

"What?"

Ryo sighed, like he knew this was coming.

"I'm guessing you know why?"

"How the hell is this not being tracked? What do they mean?"

"According to the staff hour tracking systems, you have been working a lot of parking duty at very odd hours." Chiyo sounded nonplussed, but from the way she leaned forward towards Ryo, it was evident she was intrigued. "Parking duty, and nothing else."

Sayaka blinked in confusion, looking over at Ryo questioningly.

"Based on your question, I think you know as well as I do why this operation doesn't exist in our systems."

"I've been doing all this work and no one even knows about it?" Sayaka said in a deadpan voice. _You're kidding me. You've got to be FUCKING kidding me. _

"If they knew it was you who found out, and not this mysterious problem in New Mitakihara, you'd be dead by now. The only reason I found out about you was because I followed you back to your apartment the first night we worked together. You were very difficult to keep up with." Chiyo commended her.

_I had been followed back that night. I wasn't crazy. _

"Why did you-"

"I thought you were a silly new girl who had no idea what she was getting herself into. No one says this, but there have been problems with employees disappearing from that club before. I followed you so we could monitor and put security around you. I supposed we didn't need it though." Geisha shrugged.

The knowledge that Sayaka was in fact not paranoid or crazy was only a minor source of comfort; she was still trying to process the fact that her work at the club has been strictly kept off the record.

"Wasn't anyone confused that I got promoted?" Sayaka inquired. Ryo snorted.

"Don't worry about it. The Chief and I have a good thing going on."

Sayaka pursed her lips in thought. It was so obvious that there were much deeper problems than she knew about. She had always worried that she could blow her cover at the club, which could put her family in danger. Now she wondered-

"This isn't the first operation I've keep secret, you know." Ryo whispered. "The only ones who know are those of us in this room, the other candidates, and Mei. Everyone knows to keep this silent. And the moment anything goes wrong, we have a few people who are good at making you disappear if we need it. I doubt it will ever come to that though."

Sayaka swallowed, not feeling particularly consoled, but nodded.

"I hope we can work together on the field, Detective Miki?" Akemi prompted her expectantly. Again, Sayaka nodded mutely.

"Excellent. This is great news." The elderly gentlemen struggled to speak the words and struggled to get out of the chair. The physical exertion made it sound as though he was not particularly enthused about these new developments at all. Akemi helped him up. _Why the hell hasn't that man retired? _

"Thank you for dropping by and keeping us in the loop." Ryo nodded curtly as he opened the door. It was definitely a signal that he wanted everybody out of his office. Sayaka peered at him curiously, silently asking if she could go home. He nodded.

The door to Ryo's office closed gently behind them, but the resounding click of the lock was hard to ignore. Ryo never locked his door when he was at the office. No one else seemed to pay any mind to it.

She realized that maybe her magic had heightened the sensitivity of her sense of hearing.

She followed Akemi and the elderly gentleman outside. Both Sayaka and Akemi had to help him down the stairs. The man didn't seem to want to take the ramp.

"Thank you for your help, ladies." He smiled exhaustedly as they helped him into a small black car. It looked much more inconspicuous and sleek than the awful white vans the Force used for undercover missions.

"You need to buy a cane sir." Akemi stated factually.

"I'm not that old yet." He croaked. Akemi merely huffed in mock exasperation and fondness. She closed the passenger door for him and went to the driver's side.

"Hey, Akemi-san." Sayaka started. She almost said 'Agent Akemi' but figured that would not be a good thing to say out in the open. Akemi looked at her, but her face did not have any kind of distinct impression that implied she was listening; she just stared.

"Yes?"

"I guess this might be a weird question…but Akemi isn't a particularly common last name, is it? Did you know anyone named Akemi Homura?"

Akemi's eyebrows rose on her face. That was the closest thing to a reaction Sayaka supposed she would get from her.

"She was my cousin. How did you know her?" Her tone betrayed some of her curiosity.

"She was a transfer student in my class in eighth grade at Mitakihara Middle School. She was a friend of mine." _More of a friend of Madoka's I guess, but a friend of Madoka's is…was a friend of mine. _

"I see. So you were present for the disaster?"

Sayaka winced and nodded. She should have expected that to come up.

"I will not ask you any further questions on that unless you want to speak of it. I do have one question though, if you do not mind: could you describe my cousin to me?"

"What?" Sayaka was confused by the question.

"How would you describe my cousin? What was she like? You said you were friends, correct?"

"Did you guys not know each other very well?"

This time she could notice mild annoyance on the agent's face.

"We were quite close, actually. If you must know, we were living in the same orphanage in Tokyo after our parents died. I was released from it much earlier than she was as I was older. I wanted to adopt her and bring her with me, but seeing as how I was eighteen and had no real employable skills, my request was refused. I went to university and got a job in Tokyo; the paperwork had almost gone through but shortly after she had had to move to Mitakihara for its hospital's strong reputation in child cardiac surgeries. I was even transferred to the Kazamino-Mitakihara chapter so she could stay with me. I was sent to Tokyo for six weeks at the most inopportune time to help with another assignment that we had gathered some information on. She was dead by the time I came back."

"Your parents died at the same time? That's terrible. I'm so sorry to hear that."

"They were in the same car. From what I understood, they all died quickly and painlessly. Thank you though. It was a long time ago now."

Sayaka looked at the ground sadly and awkwardly. This woman had lost all of her family. This was probably just part of the grieving process for her. _I'm an insensitive bitch. _

"I'm really sorry for your loss. Homura…well, she was really, really cool I'd say. When I say cool, I mean she was a really cool person and had a cool demeanor. She was absolutely beautiful. She was really smart, really good at sports; really good at everything, really. It was nearly impossible to believe she had just had a major heart surgery and missed months of school. She didn't like talking to many people though. She mostly hung out with me and two of my closest friends, but even then she preferred my friend a lot more than me and the other one."

Akemi scrutinized her. Sayaka resisted the urge to squirm under her intense stare. She wasn't sure what was going through her new ally's head.

"I see. Thank you." She said simply and opened the door to the car to get in.

"Is everything alright?" Sayaka asked cautiously. She could tell that what she said had unsettled her counterpart.

"Yes. You have just said what everyone else I have asked has said. One last question: what was the name of this friend that Homura had taken a liking to?"

"Kaname Madoka."

Akemi nodded. "Thank you."

She drove away. Sayaka wondered what was going through that woman's head, and she had a feeling that she would be wondering that many, many more times over the months to come.

Sayaka started to walk home, pondering the implications of the events of the morning. She was looking forward to going back to sleep.

Her work phone rang again.

Ryo.

_God dammit. _

"Yeah boss?"

"Come back to the station. Megumi's dead."

* * *

Kyoko stared at the girl in front of her in a combination of annoyance and disbelief.

"Performance anxiety, you say?" Kyoko repeated slowly, enunciating every word very carefully. Yuma wrung her hands behind her back, but glared back at Kyoko defiantly.

"Yeah, performance anxiety. So what? You were looking at my so intensely I couldn't focus on making the shot more concentrated is all. Maybe I'm just better at it alone, when I don't have to worry about a partner." Yuma shrugged.

Kyoko grabbed her hands from behind her back, which had clearly been in the process of fiddling with her gloves.

"Say that one more time when I can see your hands." Kyoko said calmly. Yuma's expression changed from nervous to irk very quickly.

Kyoko was very familiar with Yuma's nervous tick: wringing her hands. She had done it since early childhood. Her mother would beat her if Yuma appeared to be scared, so Yuma learned how to move all outward signs of distress into her hands, which were easy for her to hide. She would wring her hands when she was scared, hurt, sad, uncomfortable, angry…or _guilty_.

"Whatever! We beat the witch, that's what matters. How's your soul gem?" Yuma pried her hands away to stare at the dark crimson oval above Kyoko's breasts. It definitely needed to be purified.

Yuma's was still a fairly bright citrus. They would cleanse hers too to be safe.

"You've been keeping a lot of secrets from me recently…or have you always been keeping them and I just haven't noticed until now?"

Yuma bristled.

"I'm thirteen, I don't need to tell you every single detail of my life. Do you tell me every part of yours?" Yuma laughed spitefully after her question. "We both know the answer to that."

Kyoko sighed in annoyance bordering on frustration. She massaged her temples. Losing her temper now would do nothing to help the situation, but they had been having this same fight over and over again the past few months.

"There are some things I don't tell you because I know it would be better for you not to know. Secrets are not always hurtful. Sometimes they're there to protect the ones we love."

"Same! So we're in agreement. We can keep secrets then."

"No, _I _can keep secrets, because I'm the adult here." Kyoko made the mature decision to ignore Yuma's snort. "I'm the adult here, so I can keep secrets. You're the kid, the ward, whatever you want to call yourself, so if there's something that concerns you, it concerns me too, got it?"

Yuma crossed her arms and glared at Kyoko.

"You are _such _a hypocrite."

Kyoko sighed in very evident frustration.

"Let's find another witch and stop talking about this. If you can make the concentrated blast you were talking about work, I'll believe you."

Yuma wrung her hands again. Kyoko raised an eyebrow skeptically. Yuma huffed in annoyance.

Kyoko was debating internally whether or not to press the issue in a more diplomatic way when her phone rang.

The Kurosawa phone rang.

"Why do you have five cellphones?" Yuma questioned. "That's just excessive."

"Yeah, I agree." She clicked the 'accept call' button. "Hey."

"Meet me at my house in an hour." Kurosawa said curtly and hung up.

"So I guess we can't go hunt a witch, huh?"

Kyoko stared at her phone. She knew the man well enough to know that for a spontaneous meeting to be called at his house…there was some serious shit that was about to go down.

"Maybe we can after the meeting. It's only eleven o'clock. How about we go in that direction and split up. I talk to him about work stuff and you scout out a witch. I'll meet you after I'm done."

Yuma nodded in agreement. They transformed into regular clothes. They took the subway to the New Industrial District and didn't say anything to each other. Kyoko appeared to be looking intently at the seats across from them, but in reality she was not taking her eyes off of Yuma's reflection.

There had been a growing rift in their relationship since everything started to happen with the Church. It hurt. It really, really hurt. Yuma had been the first person since…well, the first person _ever _to really understand her. Yeah, they were really different in a lot of ways; Kyoko was adamant that Yuma was a much better person than she could ever be. Yet somehow, Yuma decided that she wanted to spend all of her time and overall good nature on Kyoko.

She was lucky. She was blessed.

And she was throwing it all away.

They got off at the large station in the New Industrial District and split up. Kyoko knocked on the large, factory door. The mansion was really, really ugly from the outside. The heavy door was unlocked and she entered the beautifully designed interior.

"In his office, ma'am." A housekeeper bowed to her. She nodded and walked away.

She never liked the idea of servants or butlers. It had the similar kind of degradation that slavery had, but they were paid; they were paid to serve and be lower beings than their employers.

She closed the office door behind her. Kurosawa was sitting at his desk on the other side of the room, head resting on his hands. A smooth jazz melody was playing lowly from an old style gramophone; Kurosawa was a man of refined tastes, as he described himself. The flames from the fireplace adjacent to him reflected on his bald head, somehow making the sight more ominous.

"Come, sit." He gestured to the significantly smaller chair across his desk. He was in a lavish, large leather chair. He swivelled his chair to the liquor cabinet that was near his desk to pull out two small glasses and a crystal decanter full of some kind of fine liquor Kyoko never bothered to learn the name of; all kinds of alcohol had the same effect and she just remembered her father. She hated alcohol and never drank it if she could avoid it.

"Have a drink." He started to pour some amber liquid into a small glass. She wrinkled her nose in distaste, but said nothing. He wasn't even looking at her.

"You take ice?"

"No, I don't drink." She hoped that would send a strong enough signal.

"Now's a good time to start." He pushed it towards her, a bit splashing out of the side. She accepted it and sniffed it. It smelled pungent and bitter. She didn't want to even imagine what it tasted like.

"Are you wondering why I called you here?"

Kyoko shrugged and sipped the alcoholic drink in front of her, pretending to be impassive about everything. The attentive look in her eye, following by a twisted expression of disgust betrayed her act.

"As you know, I told you to be on standby regarding the Miyamotos'…predicament."

Her shoulders tensed. She nodded.

"I don't know what you plan for me to do. Convince Tsubasa to run away?"

Kurosawa sighed and shook his head.

"No. That would have been preferable, but it's too late for that. He would never leave his sister behind. Kyoko, I want you to understand why I'm about to ask you what I'm about to. See, we're, as in _all _of us, are in a terrible position right now." He gestured between the two of them. "They both know so much, _too much _about everything. More importantly, I'm worried that they may know where to find evidence too."

Kyoko didn't like where this was going at all. She nodded, because everything he was saying was true, but she didn't like this.

"If the Miyamotos did not have certain connections with the Mitakihara police force, I would not be too concerned about any of this. There would be no way either Miyamoto could give a testimony indicting any of us without getting themselves worse. But they do have a connection, and I don't know all of the details, but somehow Suki has managed to weasel her and Tsubasa's way out of any trafficking charges. Right now, they would only be able to gain from throwing the rest of us under."

"I don't think they would throw me under." Kyoko shrugged. She may be trusting the snake in the garden of Eden saying that, but she genuinely believed it. Besides, they still wanted to pursue their newest "business idea", and they needed her.

Kurosawa glared at her. She was right. They wouldn't throw her under.

But the Miyamotos were not fans of Kurosawa's recent demands, and they could throw him under. He cleared his throat.

"If they throw me under, I'll throw you under. So yes, the rest of us can go under."

Kyoko glared back, clenching her fists.

Her glass shattered, breaking the atmosphere of animosity that had descended upon the room.

"Fuck." She hissed to herself, pulling a few shards from her hand. The alcohol stung. Kurosawa passed her some napkins.

"Do you need any bandages" He almost sounded concerned.

"I'm fine." She growled out. She wanted to get out of this damn house. Kurosawa sighed.

"I truly am sorry it has come to this. I don't enjoy this any more than you do." He reminded her of a master whipping a slave, saying that the punishment was hurting him more than the slave. "There is no loyalty in this industry. We're all looking out for our own best interests. It's just a matter of what we decide our best interests are."

Kyoko's mouth twitched downwards, but she decided not to say anything.

"Kyoko, I have no doubt in my mind Tsubasa is going to submit evidence to the Mitakihara Police about Tomi and myself, at the very least, to give Suki some leverage to get out or reduce her sentence. I would not be surprised if they handed in evidence about you too. I am not sure why you have as much faith in them as you do, but I will say now that if you follow _all _of my instructions going forward, it would be better for us to put this behind us. I have no idea what Megumi was doing with them, and I can only hope you weren't caught up in that as well." He sounded diplomatic; not angry, bitter, or resentful; just diplomatic.

It wasn't like him and it put her on edge.

"Tsubasa is not an idiot, so he is not returning my calls. I think he would respond to yours, though." He looked at her. The flames were casting shadows across his face, and his eyes seemed to glow. The saxophone solo playing smoothly in the background did not fit his demeanor at all.

"So what if he would?" Her tone was harsh, but everyone in this room could tell her bark was much worse than her bite.

"Kyoko, I need you to assassinate him."

Her eyes widened, though she wasn't shocked in the least. In fact, she had somewhat been expecting for the day to come when Kurosawa would increase the stakes of his demands to this level. She had been dreading it though.

"I know your policies: no drug dealing, no trafficking, and no murder. I never had any intention of asking you to violate any of them, but this is extraordinary circumstances. This is why I am willing to offer you a _very _generous offer."

She swallowed nervously. She hated herself that one of her eyebrows quirked upwards in curiosity. She felt like a monster.

"I heard you violated my _one _instruction on the Hideki assignment and borrowed money from him; quite a bit, at that. He mentioned something about a deposit on a building, or something along those lines?" Kurosawa looked at her questioningly.

Kyoko closed her eyes and nodded in resignation. She should have known that would get out soon enough. He sighed.

"I am willing to help, but I have one question. Does this building have anything to do with a Miyamoto operation?"

"No." Kyoko shook her head. "It's not for any kind of operation. It's a…personal project." She wasn't sure how else to put it. Kurosawa seemed to accept that answer.

"Good. Then here is what I will offer. I will pay off the deposit and up to forty-nine percent of the costs of the project. You will pay the remaining fifty-one. That way, whatever this 'personal project' is, you are still the majority owner. This can help you get started though."

Kyoko could not keep her mouth from dropping. That actually _was _a generous offer. She assumed it would be more along the lines of 'I won't kill your sister if you do this'.

"I..uh…"

"I respect that this is a lot to think about. So I will give you some time, _Ophelia_. You have one week. If I hear nothing of Miyamoto's disappearance by next Saturday evening, I will assume you decided not to accept my offer and I will make alternative arrangements. I would prefer to have you do it because I trust you can take care of everything from start to finish. After the Black Dragon incident, I have decided that splitting up tasks in operations like this should be avoided wherever possible."

If Kyoko's memory served her correctly, that was not the lesson that should have been learned from that mission. But she figured correcting him would only lead to a futile argument.

She left the mansion wishing she had never gone in.

* * *

Sayaka buried her head in her hands, sitting silently for a few minutes at her desk.

According to the blurry security footage, Megumi hanged himself with his pants from a pipe that ran overhead along the roof. He got up there with his bed and kicked it away to drop.

Megumi had agreed to talk. He said as long as they kept him safe, he would talk about Kurosawa.

He killed himself the next day.

The most frustrating part of everything was that it didn't feel right. Nothing about this felt right.

But you're not allowed to use hunches as evidence.

"Are you ready to go?" Ryo asked curtly. Sayaka nodded and lifted her head up. She pulled on her black coat.

She and Ryo were going to the scene before they cut him down; just to see if they could find something, anything amiss.

They drove to the jail in silence. It used to be located in the Kazamino Police Station, but after the Mitakihara disaster and the mass inflow of residents, the Force had to expand astronomically and use every bit of space it had. An older building that used to be a restaurant that was five minutes away was renovated to be the new temporary jail before the accused were sentenced. It was too small and they were going to need another very soon.

The guards nodded solemnly at them and let them in. Megumi had been being kept in a solitary cell, as per his request. Normally the Force wouldn't allow things like that, based on how crowded the jail usually was, but this had been a special circumstance.

_Whole lot of good that did_.

A guard opened the thick metal door for them.

They were greeted by the smell of shit.

"Ugh." Sayaka pinched her nose.

"You'll get used to it."

They walked around the body. The room looked eerily calm. Megumi's body was completely still in the middle, like he was a macabre decoration hanging from the ceiling to be admired. His face had a bluish tinge and his swollen tongue was almost purple and protruding from his mouth. The rest of his body, including his bare chicken legs were pale as a ghost, contrasting sharply with his dark socks and orange shirt.

Based on a first look, nothing looked amiss. It looked like the man simply killed himself.

Ryo was on the other side of the room, looking around for any kind of evidence of a struggle. Sayaka stared into the dead man's bloodshot buggy eyes.

A weight fell on her shoulders.

"Ah!" She squeaked and jumped. She whipped her head to her shoulder and saw Kyubey perched there.

"_I'm sorry, did I surprise you?" _

"Are you alright Miki?" Ryo raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, yeah, sorry just a bug surprised me is all." She chuckled lamely and inappropriately. Ryo shook his head to himself and went back to searching. Sayaka felt embarrassed.

"_I didn't mean to scare you. I do not get a chance to observe many humans who were murdered by other humans recently. I hope you do not mind my intrusion." _

Sayaka made a discrete waving gesture to imply that it was alright. Then she paused.

"_Wait, how do you know it was murder?" _

"_Based on my readings of your emotions, I had thought that you knew it too." _

"_Well, yeah I do but we can't prove it. How can we prove it?" _

Kyubey swished his tail and looked at the body.

"_Use your magic like you did with your friend. See if you can see anything odd." _

Sayaka gave a slight nod, hoping no one else noticed. She couldn't very well explain that she was talking to an invisible telepathic ferret without sounding bat shit crazy.

While Kyousuke's body had looked a beautiful cyan blue, most of Megumi's body had that disgusting dead grey colour that Kyousuke's hands had had. There were little patches of colour here and there, including intricate black designs of a tattoo on the back of his neck, but it was mostly skin cells that still had bits of the shimmering sapphire and they were slowly fading out too.

Something about the sight made her feel sad.

She tried finding something, anything that would prove he was murdered.

Then she noticed his left leg. It was hard to see with the naked eye, but with her magic she saw it.

There were four long, thin scratch marks reaching straight down from high mid-thigh to his ankle. Maybe they were from finger nails? It didn't seem like his own nails would have done that.

It wasn't much, but it was at least a sign of a struggle, right? It was visible to regular humans if they looked for it.

"Hey Captain, can you come look at this?"

"What, did you find something?" He asked eagerly and hopefully. She hoped this would be enough to go off of.

"Look at his legs. If you look really closely, you can see long scratch marks. The look like scratches from finger nails, like someone else was pulling down his pants. You wouldn't have thought that he would scratch himself like that pulling them off himself, right?" She felt like she sounded like she was grasping at straws, but she hoped it would work.

Ryo was evidently pondering it.

"You have a really good eye Miki. I don't think that would be enough to say for sure that it was a murder, but it will at least give us some reason to investigate this further and put more manpower to finding out. Good work." He smiled and patted her on the back. She smiled graciously back.

"_And good work Kyubey!" _She congratulated her friend. His tail swished to the right. If she had to venture a guess, she might have even thought he was irritated at the lack of recognition. _"Do you like sweets? I can give you some later for your help." _

"_Very well. Some magical girls have given me cakes before." _Sayaka couldn't tell if that meant he liked them or not, but based on how his tail was moving back and forth a bit more now, she figured he did. She made a mental note to buy Kyubey some cake.

The scratch marks were the only evidence they could find, but it was enough that the Chief authorized a full investigation.

* * *

Kyoko buried her head in her hands, sitting silently for a few minutes at the kitchen table. Yuma had gone to school and she didn't want the girl to see her like this.

_What the hell am I going to do? _

The thought of murdering a human, no matter how morally questionable their profession may be, seemed wrong. At the same time though, she was sure that the Miyamotos had done their fair share of murdering; she had even _seen _Suki kill that older woman.

They were even planning on running a mass murder ring to sell organs in the black market for god's sakes!

Could this be seen as karma biting them in the ass? It's supposed to be a bitch and all.

'_The worst sin man partakes in every day is believing they are as good as God, and have the wisdom and right to choose who can live and who dies.' _

Her father said that in one of his sermons once. There had actually been three people aside from her family at that one. One of them was a businessman who didn't take too kindly to the fact that her father went on to preach about modern capitalism being a vehicle to invite sin and evil into everyday life. Kyoko remembered that a number of sermons around that time followed the same kind of theme; it was around the time her family started to go hungry.

Her cover job was essentially selling lust, so yeah, she could see that.

She ran her fingers through her hair as she thought about Kurosawa's proposition. Besides, maybe killing Miyamoto would save so many more innocent lives in the long run?

That was Suki's rationalization for the organ harvesting scheme.

That had been part of Kyoko's understanding of why she hunted witches.

_Am I murdering humans when I kill witches? _

The witches used to be human, so she could say she's killing them. She's also taking potential grief seeds from other magical girls, turning them into witches faster.

She pulled out her soul gem. Lately, it got murky faster.

She willed it to extend into her lance which reached over the kitchen sink. She stared at the shimmering gold and ruby colours.

_No. Magical girls aren't human. _

_So do human laws apply to me? _

She let the lance disappear and curled over in the chair. A sob threatened to wrack her body, but nothing came. She sat there silently. She wondered what it said about her morality by how quickly she rationalized everything.

Her decision had been made.

* * *

Sayaka called Yuma over lunch, hoping to arrange a witch hunting session for Saturday evening. Now that she realized she could use her magic for her job, she figured she should be extra sure she had extra magic left over just in case.

She wished she could go hunting tonight, but it was Friday and she would have to work at the club again. She didn't feel right making a preteen stay up until 3:00 am for her shift to let out.

"Hello?"

"Hi Yuma! It's Sayaka. I was wondering if you had any plans tomorrow night."

"Not anymore." She sounded peeved. "So yeah, let's go out. What time?"

"Four o'clock at your school sound good? We can get ramen later too, on me." Sayaka was planning on sleeping in and actually cleaning up her apartment before; she had really let it slide with everything else going on and something in there was starting to smell bad. She didn't think any neighbours could smell it, but she felt no need to take the risk.

"Alright. See you then."

By normal social definitions, hanging out with a 13 year old on Saturday night at her age should make her kind of odd or downright creepy. She reminded herself that normal social conventions didn't apply to magical girls.

Her phone rang again to distract her from her contemplations of cultural definitions of what was appropriate.

"Hello?"

"Hi Sayaka! It's Kyousuke. What are you up to? Are you working?"

"Not at the moment, no. I have a night shift starting in a few hours. Why do you ask?"

"It's really nice out today. I was thinking of going for a walk in the park. Do you want to come?" He sounded very hopeful.

"You want to go for a walk in the park? What are you, ten?" She teased lightly. She made the same joke every time he asked her this. Before though, there was always a sense of sadness that came with these walks; Sayaka got the sense that he didn't particularly enjoy how vulnerable he was and how much help he needed to struggle across a field. It was more for physiotherapy that he did it before, and Sayaka had stood by his side since the accident.

This time was different though. He didn't sound like he felt like he was asking for a favour. And it wouldn't be sad or pitiful or humiliating for either of them.

They were going to walk as two able-bodied people.

He chuckled lightly.

"I know, I know. You're the only person I could think of who I would want to walk in the park with." Sayaka felt a light blush playing on her cheeks.

She could hear the part of the sentence he was leaving out though.

_I'm the only person who will walk in the park with you. _

_Hitomi…_

It hadn't even occurred to her to ask Hitomi how she was taking everything. Sayaka's kneejerk reaction was to assume that everyone who cared about Kyousuke would be thrilled that he was better and able to do everything he could do before.

Realistically though, Hitomi and Kyousuke's relationship had always been built on an unhealthy base of mutual need and feelings of inadequacy. Now that one of them might not have that…

Sayaka decided she didn't want to think about it. Hitomi and Kyousuke had been Hitomi and Kyousuke for years; she couldn't imagine anything shaking that now. They had even talked seriously about marriage before.

This wouldn't change that, right?

Sayaka remembered what he said at the club; the horribly tantalizing thing that she still sometimes had shameful dreams about.

Nakazawa had once told her that every guy had thought about fucking every single one of his female friends at some point in their friendship. Sayaka just hoped that was actually true and normal and didn't have to mean anything.

"Fiiiine. Only because you have no other friends and I feel bad for you." She teased. Kyousuke just laughed and they agreed to meet in thirty minutes. She was very close to the park anyways so when she got there she sat down on a bench and listened to some Chopin.

She felt her eyes starting to droop. The sun was warm and a gentle breeze made it the perfect temperature. Spring flowers fragranced the air beautifully, lulling her into a state of peace and calm. She couldn't remember the last time she felt so at ease.

Her phone gave a gentle buzz. Half asleep, she opened the message. Kyousuke was here. She told him she was on a bench by the tree with all of the birdfeeders before her eyes fell closed again. Her phone buzzed and told her he was sitting right beside her.

Her eyes snapped open and surely enough; he was a few inches away from her. She yanked her earbuds out.

"Why didn't you just wake me up?" She asked incredulously, a bit embarrassed that she hadn't even noticed him sit down. She literally couldn't detect someone taking a seat next to her, and she was now a detective.

"You looked so peaceful. I feel bad for waking you up at all."

"But not bad enough that you wouldn't do it, I see."

He smirked at her; something he didn't do often.

"Now that we're both awake, are you still up for the walk?" He said as he got to his feet energetically. He held out his hand to her. She smiled and took it.

It was usually her offering her hand to him to help him up.

They didn't really talk much. They admired the greenery around them, speckled with flowers of different colours and origins. Kazamino had invested quite a bit into making this park more like an exotic botanical garden. A few years ago, Kazamino was ranked as one of the ugliest cities in Japan. The development of this park was in part meant to be a tourist attraction, and partly to make the residents of town feel better about their city. It worked phenomenally, and now there was even a petting zoo somewhere in here. Sayaka had never been.

Rather, she had never been while sober.

They heard birds singing, dogs barking, and children laughing. It was a wonderfully pleasant day all around.

Kyousuke tapped her arm.

"Hmm? What is it?" She was brought out of her reverie. Kyousuke was smirking again.

"You're it." And he ran away. Sayaka stood there, trying to process what had just happened.

After a few moments too many, it dawned on her and her own grin started to form on her face.

"Oh, you're going to get it." She ran after him, playing a game they hadn't played since they were eight years old.

* * *

Kyoko called Miyamoto over lunch, almost hoping he was smart enough to not pick up the phone.

He wasn't.

"Hello Kyoko. I was thinking of calling you. How have things been with you?" He sounded like he was talking about the weather with an old friend. She hoped he knew what kind of game they were really playing right now.

She kept up her brisk pace as she walked through the park. She didn't want to sit in one place staring at four walls. She wanted to get her mind off of things and she wound up here.

She wasn't sure what it was, but something about all of the happy people around her made her feel hollow inside.

"Things have been pretty alright, yeah. How about you? I hope it ain't too bad where you are?"

He made a pleasant 'hmm' sound in agreement.

"Yes, it's not too bad at all. To what do I owe this phone call? Would it perchance be to our good friend Kurosawa Yuta?"

Kyoko raised an eyebrow. So he did know what was going on.

She was both relieved and frustrated at the same time.

"Yeah, I guess it is…" She wasn't sure where to go from there.

"Well, it's too bad to hear you've been put in this predicament." He didn't sound upset at all. "Would it be in my best interest to avoid meeting with you?"

"Uh, I don't know. I guess it's up to you to decide that." _How the hell am I supposed to respond to that? _"I can meet with you tomorrow night though, if that works for you."

She knew that meeting some time during the day would be less intimidating. At the same time though, there were too many people who might be able to see during the day. So really, she supposed it was an intimidating reason why she wanted to meet at night.

She was glad Yuma didn't ask too many questions when she cancelled what had been their best witch-hunting night for years.

"Hmmm." He was silent for a few moments. "I'm afraid that the risks to me are too great. I'm a businessman though. What kind of benefits are there for me if we were to meet?"

"What kind of benefits do you want?" _He better not be asking for a damn blowjob. _

"What are you prepared to offer?"

What was she prepared to offer? What would he want?

She swallowed. She had an idea.

"I'll show you my secret." She murmured quietly.

"What secret? Which one?" He sounded intrigued.

"I'll show you how I hide them." She narrowed her eyes. It seemed so wrong to talk about something so dark in a park where it was so nice and innocent.

He was silent.

"Where do we meet?"

"The church in the Old Industrial District. Midnight."

"We shall see each other then." She heard a click as he hung up.

She resisted the urge to vomit.

Kyoko had only ever told Yuma this, and to this day she wished she hadn't. Talking about things was supposed to be therapeutic, but it sure as hell hadn't helped her.

The reality was: it's not like Kyoko had never killed anyone before.

She killed a magical girl once. She hadn't actually _meant_ to kill her. Honestly, Kyoko wasn't even sure how she had done it to this day. The girl was an annoying rookie slut who looked like a pixie and was desperate to be like Mami. She also liked to show off that she apparently spoke Italian.

Kyoko had nightmares about the fight. The girl was way too eager to play hero and was even trying to convince girls she saved to form contracts. That had really pissed her off. It was going to take away grief seeds and the bitch had way the wrong idea about what being a magical girl was all about. The fewer dumbasses who got involved with Kyubey, the better.

They had only talked for a minute before Kyoko snapped and made the first attack. The girl was a better fighter than Kyoko had thought, that was for sure. Kyoko had just started to manage to wrap the chain around the girl. She just wanted to toss the newbie against the wall and put her out of commission for a few weeks.

The ball at the end of her chain had smacked the girl in the chest hard; it even smashed her necklace. When the girl immediately untransformed and toppled to the ground, Kyoko had assumed she had just knocked the wind out of the girl.

The vacant look in the girl's eyes still haunted Kyoko's mind. She couldn't stand looking at girls with pixie faces to this day. There are a few girls at the club who can't understand why Kyoko ignores them.

But she didn't die inside after she killed the girl. She didn't go insane. She felt bad and she moved on. Some deaths are accidents. Some deaths are inevitable.

If you work with Kurosawa, it's inevitable.

The sound of a young woman squealing with laughter made Kyoko look up from the ground. She had blue hair and was looking back at a young man with tawny silver hair whose grin matched hers. The boy grabbed the girl, making both of them tumble down a hill in hysterics. When they got to the bottom, there were a few seconds when the boy was on top of the girl looking down, like they were about to kiss. They both separated before they did, looking away flustered.

Kyoko had seen PDA plenty of times before at the club. Something about this was rubbing her the wrong way really badly and she had no idea why.

Kyoko got an answer as soon as the girl sat up and looked in her direction.

_Sayaka. _

Sayaka had clearly noticed her too, and looked like she wasn't sure if she should say anything or not. Her hand was awkwardly half in the air, like she was debating whether or not to wave. The boy must have noticed it because he looked at Kyoko and waved for her.

Sayaka cringed a bit and waved. Her boyfriend made the decision for her. Sayaka got up and walked over to Kyoko.

"Hey! Kyoko…how've you been? I feel like we haven't talked for a while." Her smile looked forced. Kyoko couldn't figure out how she hadn't been able to see through this bitch's act from the start.

"Yeah, guess we haven't." _Lie. _

The boy walked over.

"Hello there. I don't think we've met. I'm Kamijou Kyousuke." He bowed politely in greeting. Kyoko guessed from this guy's nicely pressed white polo shirt, which now had grass stains on it that he was from a richer family.

"Yo. Sakura Kyoko." She gave a half-hearted wave. She didn't bow at all. She didn't buy into that bullshit.

"So…are you two friends?" He asked uncomfortably. Kyoko's mouth twisted downwards on one side in displeasure. She didn't want to stick around in this conversation for long.

"Not really. What's the story with you two?" Kyoko interjected before Sayaka could answer. Sayaka looked surprised by Kyoko's response. _Well what did you expect, dumbass? _

"Ah…well we are friends." He smiled kindly. "Since we were kids."

"Just friends, huh? Didn't look like it." Kyoko observed as she pulled some pocky out of her pocket. Something about that hurt. She ignored it. She wasn't sure if she was trying to spite Sayaka by sticking around, or if she was just spiting herself.

"What? No, no, we're really just friends. Kyousuke hasn't been able to run or walk really for years, but now he can. We were just celebrating it, I guess." Sayaka shrugged, blushing a furious shade of dark red. "He's actually dating my friend."

_Flirting with your friend's boyfriend, huh? Why am I not surprised? _

"Gotcha. Well, I'm going to go." Kyoko walked forward, essentially forcing the two 'friends' to step aside to let her through. They both looked bewildered. Kyoko didn't give a damn.

At least Kyoko said to herself that she didn't give a damn.

She felt a hand on her arm after she had taken a few steps.

"Kyoko? I just wanted to ask…are you alright? You seem…well, I guess you seem angry or something." Sayaka looked down at the ground. Kyoko resisted the temptation to sneer.

"Think what you want. I'm going. We don't need to talk again." She shrugged the girl's hand off her shoulder and walked away. She could feel Sayaka watching her leave.

She had always hated her emotions. There were too many of them going at once and way too strong. For some weird reason, Sayaka in particular always pulled out such powerful ones, even though she barely knew her.

Kyoko wanted to say she was mostly angry right now. This girl was a harlot who was sleeping with Kyoko and a _Kurosawa _for information, and clearly had something weird going on with her friend's boyfriend.

But she didn't feel angry.

She felt lonely.

* * *

Things were officially weird with Kyousuke.

She was mortified by Kyoko's assumption that she and Kyousuke were more than friends, but if she had seen the spectacle on the hill, she would have thought the same thing.

At the bottom of the hill when they were looking into each other's eyes…Sayaka could feel his breath come out in quick puffs from his previous exertion on her lips. His weight on top of her body had felt warm and comfortable. Her fourteen year old self would have been _thrilled_.

But her current self wasn't.

Her current self felt like it was…kind of gross, actually; like she was lying underneath her brother or something.

There was also the matter that she was behaving entirely inappropriately with her vulnerable best friend's boyfriend.

And she was unnaturally concerned about what Kyoko thought about her.

Kyoko who became like an animal when she was with 'Rin' dressed as Sayaka and managed to dislocate her shoulder and break her arm when she twisted and jerked her wrist in a weird way; Sayaka had no idea how much adrenaline could do to a person.

While the finale definitely sucked…nothing else really had _too _much; though again, Kyoko had seemed angry.

Sayaka had texted her a few times asking to get ramen and never got a response. She wondered if maybe she had the wrong number so Kyoko assumed Sayaka never texted her and was mad about it?

_What if she knows?_

No, she couldn't know. Sayaka had been careful with her cover.

Sayaka had been careful with her cover most of the time.

Alright, Sayaka could have been better with her cover more than a few times.

She hoped she was just overreacting

"She seemed…yes." Kyousuke concluded uncertainly. His sentence made no sense, and yet Sayaka understood if perfectly. She nodded in agreement.

The rest of the walk was not nearly as easygoing and carefree as it had been before. The atmosphere was heavy with guilty thoughts and unanswered questions.

"I'm sorry, Sayaka." Kyousuke apologized quietly. Sayaka glanced over at him, concerned with where this was going. "I feel like I haven't been very good to you recently."

"I don't know what you mean by that, so it's alright. Don't worry about it." She hoped he would drop the topic. Kyousuke was never the best at picking up social cues. He nodded and looked at his feet as they walked.

She glanced at the time on her phone.

It was one of the first times in a long time that she was actually relieved she would have to go to the club soon.

* * *

Things were officially weird at work.

The rumours surrounding Sayaka's injury had managed to completely spiral out of control in just two days. Some said Kyoko was jealous of 'Rin's' relationship with the younger Kurosawa and wanted revenge. Others said Sayaka faked it to get Kyoko in trouble. Some went so far as to say that the clients had requested that they act out a snuff scene.

Kyoko put on dark makeup next to Lady. They didn't say anything to each other.

Kyoko had opted for a short black cocktail dress today. She figured wearing anything leather or vaguely dominatrix in appearance would send the wrong signals to everybody.

In the mirror, Kyoko saw the robot bitch and cop bitch walk by. The robot bitch was overdressed as usual while the cop bitch wore a simple pink lace sleeping gown, like she was going to a teenage boy's fantasy of what girls' sleepovers must be like. Kyoko rolled her eyes.

She pulled her ribbon out of her hair. She had a personal rule that she would never wear it while she was performing.

Even she felt like that would be an insult to his memory.

"Let me help you." Lady commanded softly, stepping behind Kyoko with a curling iron. Within fifteen minutes, her face was surrounded by big bouncy curls.

She looked pretty classy for being in a dress that barely covered her crotch.

"Thanks." She said without smiling. Lady had followed Kyoko's example and wore a form-fitting crimson satin dress instead of the trashier things she usually wore.

Sayaka was going to stick out like a sore thumb in room B tonight.

They arrived just on time and were greeted by a smoky haze.

"Lady! I was worried you weren't coming. You look as magnificent as the mountains from which this shit came, which I'm guessing are pretty damn magnificent." James had bloodshot eyes that weren't focusing very clearly. He took a breath from a hookah on the table in front of him again.

Kyoko noticed there was no Miyamoto; Hideki was sitting in his place.

"You're looking quite magnificent yourself, Koko." He looked her up and down, appraising her favourably. Kyoko was used to getting stared at like a piece of meat.

"No matter what job I have, I do it right." She shrugged before taking Suki's usual seat. This way she could look at both Hideki and Kurosawa without setting off some kind of passive aggressive pathetic power struggle between the two. She crossed her legs, making an effort to raise her leg a bit too high and give a peek to those watching her while doing so.

She resisted the urge to smirk when she noticed Sayaka looking away with a blush shining through on her heavily covered face. As always, she was sitting in baby Kurosawa's lap.

And as the new habits were emerging, his hands were all over her.

_Whore. _

The night passed without any major surprises. The only thing that made her quirk a brow was how much the robobitch was capturing Hideki's attention. They were talking about some foreign policies that would impact European and Asian trade. James had a number of surprisingly well-articulated points to add. It was boring as hell.

Kyoko made an active effort to not look in Sayaka's direction at all throughout the night.

She barely had to make any effort at all to ignore Kyubey who was sitting at the base of the pole silently. Normally the little bastard was taunting her but tonight he just studied the room.

It was disconcerting, but overall easy to ignore.

The night finished without incident. Neither she nor Sayaka said anything to each other throughout the night. Hell, Kyoko barely even talked the whole night; Kurosawa stared at her and neither said anything to each other or added to the conversation about politics. Kyoko went home. Yuma was asleep on the couch. Kyoko slept in the bed alone.

She hoped the roof was leaking or something, and that was why she felt drops of water on her face.

She would have to find a way to kick her own ass if she was crying.

* * *

Sayaka left her apartment with plenty of time to spare before meeting Yuma. She wasn't sure if it was because she was excited to hunt a witch or was bored of convincing herself to clean in futility. Her apartment still smelled funny.

Luckily, Yuma left early too. She looked upset.

"Hey! How are you?" Sayaka mentally cringed when she realized how overly sympathetic she had sounded; she knew how much her young mentor hated that.

"I'm fine. Let's go. Did you bring what I asked you to?"

Sayaka nodded, feeling the weight of the handgun in the holster hidden beneath her black trench coat. Yuma had texted her saying she was concerned Sayaka was using up too much magic but morphing her sword. Sayaka practiced as carefully as she could in her apartment and it never changed shape; she just seemed to make it change subconsciously when she was fighting.

"Good. If you want, you can practice with it on familiars too. I know how much you've been itching to take them on too." Yuma smiled at her. Sayaka returned it; she really did want to fight both familiars and witches. It made her profoundly uncomfortable that Yuma didn't, but she wasn't about to go picking any fights with a thirteen year old girl who needed her support and was teaching her a pile of great stuff in the process.

"Thanks! I appreciate that. I'm okay if we don't go out of our way to fight familiars though; I don't have a huge amount of bullets."

Yuma's smile relaxed to something more natural, clearly relieved that Sayaka was starting to concede more willingly on the issue.

To fill the silence, Sayaka started to chatter about Kyousuke's incredible improvement. Yuma smiled and nodded. Yuma talked a bit about her art trip coming up in just two weeks. They had made an aggressive hunting plan to help make sure Yuma would have enough grief seeds before she went.

"How long is your trip again?"

"About three weeks."

Sayaka felt bad about asking this, but she had to. She thought it seemed excessive.

"Are you sure you're going to need fifteen grief seeds? I mean, you're not going to be using any magic while you're over there, right? So wouldn't your magic consumption be pretty low? Fifteen just seems like a lot."

Yuma stopped walking and looked at her feet uncomfortably. She had her hands behind her back.

"I'm just really scared about what American magical girls might be like. I don't want to have to risk messing with their territory in any way while I'm there. Some of them might even have high magic sensitivity and be able to sense my presence when I get there; what if they're aggressive and demand I hand over all of my grief seeds? This way I'll be safe and be able to carry a few decoys around to give out and not start any fights, yeah?"

"Would magical girls actually do that? You'd think they'd be happy you were there; you can help them fight witches. You're a great healer!"

"Sayaka, take this from me. Never trust magical girls you've just met. When you trust magical girls, you're literally entrusting them with your life. Some are great, honest people like you; most of them aren't. _Never _trust a magical girl."

"Then why did you trust me?" Sayaka was genuinely baffled.

"Because I knew I could outsmart you in a fight if you were stupid enough to go to a middle school and ask someone a fraction of your age to teach you." She quipped with a smirk that was uncannily similar to her sister's.

"Oi!" Sayaka laughed before running at the girl. Yuma laughed and ran away. It was the second time she had played tag in two days. She remembered why this used to be her favourite game, but the stakes were way higher when Yuma could actually jump onto buildings as easily as if she were going up two stairs at a time.

Yuma halted on top of an abandoned warehouse. Sayaka had to make herself trip over her own two feet to avoid running straight into her.

"What is-" Then she felt it.

There was a witch nearby.

"You ready?" Yuma smiled down at her, holding out her hand to help her up. Sayaka grinned back, taking it.

"Ready!"

* * *

Kyoko left her apartment with plenty of time to spare before meeting Miyamoto. It wasn't that she wanted to leave; more that for the sake of her relationship with her sister, who she had more and more trouble referring to her as that every day.

"I can't stand this! Tell me what's going on! Your brain is in overdrive with something more than the church! I can barely _sleep _because _your_ emotions are keeping _me _awake! TELL ME WHAT'S GOING ON!" Yuma shrieked, pulling on her hair. She was pulling so hard Kyoko was worried she'd yank it out; her scalp was getting really red.

Another nervous tick from her childhood; this one was a bad one that Kyoko hadn't seen since around the time Yuma contracted.

Kyoko grabbed Yuma's arms, squeezing her wrists painfully tight to get her to let go.

"You need to cut this out! I get that you're freaked out. I get that you mean well. But I need you trust me on this; I don't want you to get involved. This isn't your fight; it's mine. I need you to _trust me_."

"How can I trust you when everything's been going to hell?! Your magic attacks, your sketchy deals, staying out until 4 am every night?! You're practically walking around like a zombie; you're miserable! How am I supposed to trust you when you say you're okay?!" Yuma struggled to reach her hair, but Kyoko kept a firm hold on her arms.

"Since you became a magical girl, have I ever failed you?"

Yuma stopped cold. She had tears running down her face that had become as red as her abused scalp. She hiccupped quietly.

"No." She squeaked.

"Exactly. And I'm not going to start now. So quit freaking out. Believe me, it's just making things worse. If you want to make things better, just calm down and trust me."

Yuma's arms were limp in her hands, so Kyoko let them go. They flopped to Yuma's side. Her gaze was set on the kitchen floor dejectedly.

Kyoko stood there, staring at the girl for three minutes. She sighed and started to load some dishes in the dishwasher.

Yuma was sniffling behind her.

Kyoko stared at a plate she had just put in there that was stained with ketchup and soy sauce, an odd combination that only she and Yuma seemed to enjoy. She got up and walked over to Yuma, hugging her gently and combing her fingers through her hair. She shushed her gently.

"I'm sorry. I really, really am." Kyoko apologized softly.

Yuma didn't hug her back. She was holding her arms against her chest.

"I don't like this, Kyoko." She mewled pitifully. Kyoko resisted the urge to sigh.

"I know you don't."

"I don't think I even like you. I love you because I have to; you're the only family I have. But I don't like you."

Kyoko felt a lump forming in her throat.

"That's fine. You have every right to feel that way." Kyoko kept her tone level. One of them had to keep their emotions in check. Now that Kyoko thought about it, she'd only had to discipline to reel herself in when Yuma was involved.

Yuma definitely made her a better person.

What did she do for her?

"I don't think I want to look at you right now." Yuma whispered.

Absolutely nothing; that's what she did.

Kyoko had tears forming in her eyes, but she didn't make a sound. She pulled back, giving Yuma a light kiss on the forehead. She went to the cabinet where they left the movies and pulled out Yuma's favourite dramas. She left them on the couch before she picked up her coat that was draped on the back of the couch.

She walked out the door and she was going to be way too early for her meeting with Miyamoto.

And she was going to be meeting him at the church.

She was going to murder him near the church.

Kyoko ducked into an alley to let her first sob break out. She didn't have anything. She didn't have control of her magic. She didn't have control of the church. She didn't have control of _anything. _

And now she didn't have Yuma.

_The best thing I can really do for her is leave her. _

Kyoko straightened herself out, wiped away her tears and walked. She could have taken the subway, but even with walking she would be a whole hour early. The streets were dirty and depressing.

She liked that, because at least that fit her mood. The park had been terrible.

Her mind briefly wandered back to Sayaka, who had looked so happy with that boy.

Sayaka was like her; she was an idiot and made bad choices. Kyoko contracted to become a magical girl, Sayaka had done drugs. Kyoko dehumanized herself every day for the assholes she worked for, and so did Sayaka.

She glanced at her phone. Sayaka had texted her four times since they saw each other at the club.

She hadn't texted her since Kyoko beat her up in the alley though. Kyoko couldn't say she blamed her.

Kyoko was so, so tempted to text her back. It might be nice to talk to another fuck up.

She even typed out a message. 'Are you free right now'.

Her thumb hovered over the send key. Kyoko huffed in frustration and clicked cancel. She had to wipe away tears from her eyes again.

No, even Sayaka wasn't as much of a fuck up as her. Sayaka had done drugs, but she didn't make a contract with the devil.

That took a whole new level of dumbassery.

She powerwalked to the church, getting there after a number of hours of walking. She didn't even stop for food.

She actually got there two hours early. She decided to go to cemetery in the back; it might help to talk it out with the rocks that symbolized where her family's cold dead bodies had been buried.

But evidently, so did Miyamoto. He didn't have a car or any guards. He just sat on a bench by the graveyard.

He was staring at her family's graves.

He only noticed her presence when she stepped on a branch, making it snap underneath her weight. He looked up at her and smiled genuinely.

"Good evening Ophelia. I see you're early too."

"Don't call me that. It's just Kyoko."

He smiled. "Forgive me. I thought only my sister had the privilege of calling you that."

"She didn't have the privilege to call me anything. She just called me what she wanted to." Kyoko sneered, but she wasn't particularly upset by it. Tsubasa chuckled merrily.

"Yes, she would do that. How's your sister? Has she been well?"

Kyoko looked at him out of the side of her eye. She was about to kill him anyways, so she may as well be honest.

"No. She's been pretty upset with everything that's going on. The best thing I could do for her now would be to get out of her life. Maybe if I fake my death or something, she can get the life insurance money too."

"I wouldn't be so quick to say that."

"Why not?" This time she turned her head to face him.

"Suki decided on her own that the best thing for me would be to pretend we don't know each other. Now that I have some serious matters that I need her help to figure out, she's gone and I can't speak to her without disrespecting her sacrifice."

"Sacrifice?"

"She's going to go to prison for a very, very long time. I won't. And neither will the Kurosawas or James. I'm not just saying that to convince you not to kill me; it's true. She wouldn't be able to implicate the others without implicating me too."

"You don't seriously believe she'll be able to deny the connection to you, do you? You're screwed. She was caught on tape and everything."

"You said she said she was going to go peacefully when she was arrested, right? That was our code to each other. And besides, she was only caught admitting that she put that animal down. They have no sure way of proving she was involved in our operation. She could deny she had any idea what Atihiko or Megumi were talking about, and I'm sure she'll do exactly that."

Kyoko was vaguely impressed by the man's faith in his sister. She wouldn't have that faith herself.

"That woman wasn't an animal; she was sick. And Suki would have no reason to kill her aside from her failing in the operation. No one would believe she just killed a person for the hell of it. She doesn't come off as _quite_ that psychotic."

Tsubasa chuckled bitterly. "I wouldn't be so sure about that."

Kyoko blinked and looked back at the graves. Tsubasa had never taken his eyes off of the Sakura family graves.

"Let's play a game. I will ask you three questions. You have to reply truthfully to two of them. If I can guess which question you lied to, I win. If I am wrong, you win."

"What does the winner get?"

"A free taiyaki?" He offered. Kyoko smirked, but it was only half genuine. _Why not? At least one of us is going to die tonight. _

"First question. What happened to that grave?" He pointed to the grave next to her family's; the one she suspected had been destroyed during Walpurgisnacht.

"I'm not completely sure. I'm think it was destroyed in the disaster six years ago. I can't really say any more than that because I don't know." She raised an eyebrow. "Seems like a waste of a question."

He smiled. "Maybe. Second question then. Are you going to murder me tonight?"

She caught the trick he caught her in. If she lied to this, she'd have to answer truthfully to the last question. She inhaled deeply.

Worse comes to worst, what could he do if she lied? She never played fair.

"No."

He smiled at her. He knew she was lying.

"Last question then. What's your name?"

"My name? It's Sakura Kyoko." She was bewildered.

But then again, Suki had asked her the same thing. Why did they not believe she was who she said she was?

It pissed her off.

"Your sister asked me the same thing right before she got arrested." He chortled at that, unsurprised. "Why are you asking me that?"

"Do you want to play another round? That's the only way I'll answer you. But you need three questions."

She sneered. "Fine. Why do you and your sister think I'm not Sakura Kyoko?"

He studied her intently, deciding what to say.

"Everyone in this industry lies about who they are. We just like to know who we're working with."

She didn't trust him. But he'd have to answer the next two honestly anyways. Unless he planned on playing dirty like she did.

Which he probably did.

"Do you think you'll be alive by the end of the night?"

He chuckled jovially.

"No. I don't. If you don't kill me, someone else will. I've had a few unfriendly faces following me, not only for Kurosawa but others too."

"You don't seem upset." She remarked. He smiled and shrugged.

"This has been a long time coming. If it wasn't my profession that would kill me, it would be this." He knocked on his head. She raised an eyebrow.

"Is that your third question?"

She thought about it. She sighed.

"Fine. That's my third question." He smiled at her.

"I was diagnosed with stage four brain cancer a few months ago. Inoperable. I could have tried to get it treated, but I would just be sick and miserable until I died anyways. It was just going to prolong the process. I've been seeing things that I don't think are there. I'm not even sure if you're here or if I'm just talking to myself." He laughed, but Kyoko didn't think it was funny.

"Then why were you working so hard on all of these plans to change your operations like the organ trafficking thing? Why wouldn't you focus on living your life to the fullest, or travelling, or devoting yourself to the betterment of mankind or something? Why keep working with all of this?"

"That's another question. And I won't let you play another round if I don't get to, and I don't particularly feel the need to play. You gave me all the answers I wanted."

She paused before getting mad.

"Suki doesn't know, does she?"

He breathed in and out slowly.

"Very astute of you."

A warm breeze pushed one of the last Sakura blossoms onto the dying man's lap. He smiled at it.

"The Sakura truly is a beautiful flower, don't you think?"

Kyoko shrugged. Most flowers were pretty. His smiled faded, but she sensed it had nothing to do with her response.

"So you lied when you said you weren't going to kill me, correct?"

She nodded.

Then she was confused. She couldn't believe that he was lying for the second or third question.

"You lied for my first question."

"Oh dear! It looks like we've both won. Shall we both buy taiyaki or just call it a draw?"

"Why did you lie about that?"

"The games are over. Now, I am a very curious man. Won't you show me your secret method? That was your promise, was it not?"

She looked at him with resignation and nodded. He was a dead man walking, after all.

She led him to where she knew the witch's barrier was.

* * *

Sayaka had to keep herself from gaping in amazement at the labyrinth around her.

She felt like she was walking through outer space, but instead of black it was a dark purple. She could see planets, stars, galaxies, and meteors around her. She and Yuma were walking on what looked like a road of stardust.

"This is actually beautiful." She said, mostly to herself. She wished she could take a picture.

"It really is. I'm definitely going to paint this one." Yuma responded, but she clearly still had her guard up, waiting for something to attack. Sayaka shook her head, remembering that she was in a danger zone right now.

The road split off in two directions in front of a planet that looked like a pink and blue Saturn.

"Do we split up?" Sayaka asked.

"No, never split up in a labyrinth. We'll go…" She looked like she was playing a game of eenie-meenie-miney-moe in her head "left."

It turns out they had worried for nothing. The road converged again on the other side of the planet.

"Told you left was a good idea." Yuma stated.

"What? But it just-"

"That was a joke, Sayaka." She teased lightly without stopping her constant survey of her surroundings. "There's a difference between having a bit of a sense of humour and letting your guard down. It's a fine line though. You shouldn't try it."

"You're such a brat." She teased lightly, surveying the surroundings too as they walked. _See? I can do it too. _

"This might sound weird, but could you not call me that?"

"Oh sorry, I didn't mean to offend you."

"No, I'm not offended. It's just that you kind of remind me of someone I'd rather not think about right now when you say that." Yuma wasn't mad, but it didn't look like she wanted to keep talking either. Sayaka agreed and decided to ask her later.

They heard a distorted shriek from up ahead.

"She knows we're here." Yuma stated, taking on a fighting stance. Sayaka did the same.

"How do you know it's a 'she'?"

"They're all 'she's, now get ready!"

If the light speed they made spaceships travel in the movies were like anything, it was this. The space around them warped while they stayed still. It was like the galaxies were being launched behind them, left as nothing but blurs in the periphery of their visions.

Sayaka couldn't even feel a breeze of anything though. Everything about her and Yuma was perfectly still.

The labyrinth stopped moving and they saw what looked like a green astronaut with butterfly antennae figure skating along galaxies and planets. The skates were leaving behind the same kind of dust they were walking on.

"She's about to start attacking." Yuma warned. The witch made a kind of 'whoop' sound and comet was launched at them. Yuma jumped forwards while Sayaka jumped back. The road between them was shattered and disappeared.

"I got this!" Sayaka shouted as she pulled out her gun. As she reached for it, her sword automatically morphed into a sleeve so she didn't have to sheath it. Sayaka knew instinctually that if she need her sword, it would automatically morph back into a sword for her.

Sayaka pulled the trigger and a loud boom echoed around them. The bullet was launched from the gun but after just a few inches, it started to float away. It didn't even get close to the witch.

"Do you think you can make your shield propel it forward?" Yuma called back as she launched an energy wave to break a planet that was thrown at her.

"I can try!" Sayaka wasn't even sure if she could set up shield barriers away from her body, but she tried. She envisioned a series of mirrors and fired at the first one. Amazingly, it worked and the bullet was reflected off of each imaginary mirror, propelling faster and faster.

"Yes!" Sayaka grinned excitedly.

And then the last mirror deflected the bullet right at Yuma who shrieked and ducked to avoid it.

"Oh shit I'm so sorry!" Sayaka apologized profusely. Yuma squawked while pointing at something behind Sayaka. She raised her left arm and looked behind her just to see a sun being reflected away from her.

"Keep your guard up!" Yuma shouted. Sayaka was about to apologize again but decided to wait until after.

Sayaka tried to focus. She could see the witch. It wasn't particularly fast, but it had a lot more free space to move around than she or Yuma did.

Sayaka imagined a bunch of mirrors, each taking a different path. She fired three bullets, one into each path.

It didn't look like any of them were going to make it.

"Sayaka, make one more mirror right in front of the orange planet for me!" Yuma ordered. Sayaka nodded and obeyed.

Yuma launched an energy blast into of the mirrors in the middle path. It bounced off, hitting one if the left path, which then made it hit one in the right, back to the middle, over to the planet, and catapulted it straight into the witch whom exploded on impact.

The labyrinth vanished and they found themselves on top of the Kazamino planetarium. A grief seed with an emblem that looked like the planet Saturn was on top of the massive dome that was in so many postcards the city tried to sell to tourists.

"Hooray!" Yuma cheered, giving Sayaka a high five. Sayaka grinned and returned it. "Great job Sayaka! I wasn't sure if you could do that, but that's such a powerful skill to have."

"Thanks." Sayaka blushed and rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. "I didn't know I could either."

The slid off the dome, which was amazingly dangerous but amazingly fun and picked up some fast food; it was the perfect time to have dinner after all.

Sayaka wasn't surprised when Yuma chided her for not having her head in the battle, which she deserved. She wasn't overly impressed by the whole nearly-shooting-her thing either. Overall though, the hunt had been a complete success.

"Seriously, you suck at geometry. Didn't you pay attention in middle school math?"

"What do you think?" Sayaka laughed at herself. Yuma grinned.

"Alright, but really, you need to learn it. I don't want you launching my own attacks back at us. That's a really bad idea. There are plenty of games you can play to help you practice. I'll send them to you tonight."

Sayaka didn't think having to play computer games sounded like a bad thing. Then again, she had found typing games fun when she was a kid, but once they become mandatory for school she despised them. She hoped the same thing wouldn't happen here. Besides, this wasn't for grades; this was to save lives.

Sayaka's phone rang. It was Hitomi.

"Oh shit, it's Saturday!" Sayaka cursed. Yuma looked at her with enquiring eyes.

"Hitomi, hi! I'm so sorry, I completely forgot about tonight." Sayaka had never forgotten about their Saturday night get-togethers; they'd done them for years.

"You forgot? Sayaka, are you alright? This doesn't seem like something you'd forget…" Sayaka could recognize Hitomi's are-you-using-again tone.

"I'm fine, I'm fine, I actually just forgot. I've had a lot going on and I'm not sure-" She stopped and looked at Yuma. She got the feeling that Yuma didn't have many chances to make friends, and imagined it could be hard. Besides, she had to be so much more grown up than everyone around her.

She wondered if meeting some older people who knew what witches' barriers were like could be good for her.

Sayaka put her thumb on the mouthpiece to mute it.

"Hey Yuma, you want to take a break for a few hours and hang out with some friends of mine? They're pretty cool." She tried to coax her. "Well, I think they're pretty cool." She felt like she was becoming less successful in her coaxing.

"Uh, I guess." Yuma seemed a bit uncomfortable. "Don't you think they'll find it weird if you bring a thirteen year old to a party though?"

"Ha! This isn't a party, trust me. And if it makes you feel better, they've seen me do way weirder things." Sayaka winked at her. Yuma smiled a bit, but nodded. Sayaka thought she may have sensed a bit of subdued excitement there. She hoped she did.

"Hey Hitomi, do you mind if I bring my friend along?"

"Your friend? Who's this?"

"You'll meet her! Well, you will if I can bring her along."

"Yes, certainly. When do you think you'll get here?"

Sayaka mentally calculated the subway and walking times. "Maybe forty minutes?"

"Forty minutes? Oh dear, the noodles will be cold by then. Oh well, I will put some away in the oven for you and hopefully they stay warm. I'm not sure if I'll have enough for both you and your friend." _Passive aggressive jabs, I see. _She wasn't going to let Hitomi guilt her out of bringing Yuma.

"Thanks Hitomi! Don't worry, Yuma's small so she doesn't need to eat much." Yuma huffed indignantly. "See you soon!"

The ride took no time at all. Yuma showed Sayaka a few games to download. Sayaka could immediately see how they could help her use her magic more effectively.

Sayaka opened the door which was never locked for her.

"Hi everyone!" She greeted pleasantly. Everyone consisted of Kyousuke and Nakazawa who were engrossed in some sort of conversation and Hitomi, who looked _very _annoyed at how late she was. Kyousuke and Nakazawa merely sent distracted waves in her direction.

"So who is this friend you've brought?" Hitomi asked pleasantly. Sayaka was glad she wasn't going to be snippy to Yuma. That seemed to catch Nakazawa's attention who got up from his seated position.

"Oh, not a guy then." He murmured quietly to himself. Both Sayaka and Yuma managed to hear it though. Yuma smirked.

"No, I'm not a guy. My name is Chitose Yuma. It's a pleasure to meet all of you." Yuma bowed. After everyone's greetings were made, they sat down and talked while eating lukewarm noodles.

"I don't know why I brought noodles. Now that Kyousuke can use his hands again, it's not nearly as funny to watch him try to eat it."

"I _knew _that was why you kept bringing them!" Sayaka shouted. Hitomi cringed and made a gesture to lower the volume. "I _knew _that was why you kept bringing them!" She whispered dramatically.

"So, how is it that you two know each other?" Hitomi asked. Sayaka figured someone would ask. It was true that she had done stranger things than bringing a young teenager to one of their get-togethers, but this was still strange, even by her standards.

"My school is sending me on an art trip to America. We've all been given community partners to help us fundraise. Sayaka's my fundraising partner. We just got back from a staff party at the station and raised nearly 20,000 yen!" Yuma lied flawlessly. Sayaka was impressed that she not only crafted this on the spot, but she even managed to do it in a way that didn't make Sayaka look creepy as hell. She appreciated that.

"_Now _I remember where I've seen you! Hitomi, this girl is the one who made the painting of the church I gave you. She was selling them at the park." Kyousuke said. Hitomi's eyes widened.

"_You _painted that? I assumed it was done by someone who was at least studying at an art college. You're very talented!" Hitomi praised. Yuma smiled. It looked like she had been commended for her talent many times before.

"Thank you. I'm glad you like it. Now that you mention it, I think I remember you too. Weren't you in a wheelchair though?" Yuma tilted her head to the side as she asked it.

"I was! One night, I was just better. I can walk and use my hands perfectly now. The doctors had never seen anything like it."

"If anyone deserved a miracle, it was you." Hitomi said with admiration in her eyes. Sayaka noticed Nakazawa wrinkle his nose.

"I see." Yuma said, but she looked concerned. Sayaka had a feeling they were going to be talking more about this later.

Nakazawa, Kyousuke, and Yuma played some kind of melee fighting videogame. Hitomi and Sayaka started to put away dishes. _These age and gender roles are bullshit. _

"Sayaka, could we speak on the balcony for a minute?" Hitomi asked in a falsely courteous voice. Sayaka was nervous. She could tell Hitomi was upset with her and she couldn't tell what for; there were too many choices to pick from.

_That's never good…_

They stepped out. The sunset coloured the sky a beautiful combination of blood red and burnt orange. It didn't complement Hitomi's hair particularly well.

"Of all the nights for you to bring a middle school student with you, you had to pick tonight." Hitomi sounded like she was on the verge of tears. Sayaka eyes widened.

"Hitomi, what is-" She was cut off by Hitomi falling to the ground of the balcony, curling in on herself sobbing.

"I think we're going to break up. I really think we're going to break up this time." Hitomi was shaking.

"No, no, don't say that. What would you think that? You've been together for years!" Sayaka sat down next to her bawling friend and wrapped her in a clumsy hug.

"If I thought he didn't like coming by before, now he _really _never wants to come by." She sniffled. "I feel so awful saying this, but ever since he got better he's either at home playing his violin or out walking around. He keeps on trying to get me to get out of my apartment. He says that if he could get better, so could I. And he's right. And I tried, I really did. It was so pathetic. I took five steps outside of my building and I nearly collapsed from hyperventilating." Hitomi's last sentence was almost incomprehensible, but Sayaka had heard Hitomi trying to talk while crying hard a few times, so she knew how to decipher it. Hitomi could do the same for her, after all.

"What he had and what you have are completely different Hitomi. Mental wounds and physical ones aren't even close to being the same. You know how many times Kyousuke and I have clashed about that." Sayaka offered as condolences.

"Are they really? He even talks about you. He talked about _you _in particular because you said it was like overnight, you had no desire to do any kind of drugs. How is that any different from what happened to him? Why is everyone getting better except for me?" She buried her head in her knees. Sayaka had never heard Hitomi have such dark thoughts before, and she'd had some _dark _ones. But they weren't usually envious; they were more fearful or sad.

"I'm such a monster. I'm such a selfish, cowardly monster."

"We all have thoughts like that. It's okay. You're not a monster. You're human. And it's not fair at all that I got better and you didn't. If anyone deserved it…it was you." Sayaka whispered. It hadn't even occurred to Sayaka to consider if her good fortune was fair.

"I mean, look at me. I took advantage of people for years. You're basically the only reason I even passed secondary school. This great, wonderful thing happened to me and I didn't even think for a second about how it might impact the people around me who I made suffer for years. Like, it was just 'poof! I'm better!' and I was just happy about it. I never thought if that might seem like a rip off or anything for the people who worked so hard to keep me up when I was at my worse…does that make any sense? I don't know if it does." Sayaka felt worse and worse about herself as she spoke. She hadn't been conscientious at all.

"No, no Sayaka please don't think like that. I'm so sorry, this is awful. I'm not trying to make you feel bad that you got better. Maybe I am? I don't even know." Hitomi cried harder again. Sayaka squeezed her more.

"It's okay if you want to. It's not fair. It's not fair that our school, out of all the schools, got attacked by a witch. It's not fair that any of our classmates got killed. It's not fair that our homes got destroyed. It's not fair that we had such a shitty time in secondary school. None of this is fair, Hitomi! You don't need to feel like you did anything to deserve this, because you didn't! The world's not fair, and it hasn't been fair to any of us. It's okay to be mad about it."

Hitomi's sniffles subsided quickly and she nodded. She looked very confused.

"Thank you Sayaka. I appreciate that, I do. But what do you mean when you say a witch attacked our school?"

Sayaka stared at Hitomi's forest eyes that were waiting for an explanation.

_Oh. Shit. _

"Uhh…"

Sayaka was saved by a distraction when the balcony door was shoved open. She was relieved.

She was relieved for a second until she saw the utterly panic stricken expression on Yuma's face.

"Sayaka, we need to go now!"

"What is it? What's wrong?" Sayaka was trying to make some sense of the situation and diffuse it. There were a few too many chaotic things happening at once.

"_Now!_" Yuma yelled as she hopped over the balcony, sliding down a drainpipe. Hitomi gasped in horror while Kyousuke and Nakazawa gaped from inside. Yuma of course landed perfectly and started to run. "HURRY UP!"

Sayaka snapped out of her thoughts.

"I'm so sorry about this. Please never try this yourself."

Sayaka jumped off, sliding down the pipe the same way Yuma did and sprinted after her.

* * *

Kyoko had to keep herself from gaping in horror at the labyrinth around her. Clearly something was happening to the witch, because the flower familiars were _huge_.

"What…what is this place? Am I hallucinating?" Miyamoto asked in horrified disbelief. "I've never seen anything like this. I had no idea there was a garden here."

"This is called a labyrinth. A monster called a witch lives here. Once the witch is killed, anything that was dead in here disappears with her." Kyoko explained. She knew Miyamoto was a curious man and besides; he was never going to leave.

"So I am hallucinating then?" He more stated than asked.

"Think what you want." Kyoko shrugged.

Miyamoto swallowed nervously and licked his lips. He took deep breaths. "So nothing that dies in here gets out, you said?"

"Not unless someone brings it out, no."

"Alright. Alright. This is good. This is good." He muttered to himself. "This is what I want. This is where I want to die."

"Why?" Kyoko couldn't comprehend why someone would _want _to die in a labyrinth. It would be a nightmare come true for her, and frankly that is her most likely fate.

"This illness has been in my family for generations. It was hell for us watching our mother die before her body did. I only have Suki left, and I don't want her to have to see that too. I don't want to be remembered for being a shell; I want to be remembered for being a brilliant doctor and businessman. If I die here, no one will ever know that my mind was ever dulling at all."

Kyoko stared at the man in front of her as he admired the flowers. The blooms were closed now, but when they opened she wondered what kind of savagery would come to light.

Miyamoto stopped and turned to her.

"So…Sakura-san." He smiled kindly and pityingly to her as he said that. "How did you learn about these places?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me."

"I made a contract with a demon chimera named Kyubey and became a magical girl. My job is to fight witches." To prove her point, she transformed into her magical girl robes.

Tsubasa stared at her with wide eyes, slowly falling backwards to take a seat.

"Kyubey was actually _real_? The white cat with wings from his head is _real_?" He asked in horror.

Kyoko was surprised.

"You know about Kyubey?" _How the hell would he know? _

"We thought Suki was crazy for years. Part of the reason why we adopted her was that my mother thought she was ill like her own mother had been. She had so much sympathy for her. She had the same illnesses we did; she would be a perfect substitute for the baby. Nobody would be surprised if her family died anyways.

"Suki insisted that she could help her family and make them better. She said she would find Kyubey and make a contract to make her family better. She said she would become a magical girl and fix everything.

"We had to keep her tied down and sedated for weeks after we took her in. She kept trying to run away. We assumed she had inhaled too many of the toxic fumes her birth family had her surrounded with." Tsubasa covered his mouth with his hand, trying to muffle an ashamed sob.

Kyoko listened to the dying man with mixed emotions. The way Suki had told the story, the Miyamoto family had saved her life.

The way Tsubasa told the story, they had murdered her family and kidnapped her.

"Does Suki remember any of this?"

Tsubasa shook his head. "I've sometimes tried to talk to her about it. She gets upset whenever I do."

Kyoko watched the crying man with furrowed brows. He kept crying for almost ten minutes.

He finally composed himself. He stood up and brushed off the invisible dust from his suit.

"I apologize for that. Thank you for being so compassionate in hearing my last confession. You can do that, right? You're the daughter of a preacher after all." He smiled at her. She didn't smile back.

"Sakura Kyoko, it would be an honour if you ended my life." He bowed. She looked at him. She felt so conflicted that she felt nothing.

"Fine." She materialized her spear, bringing it down over his neck.

She was used to cutting through witch's flesh. She was used to chopping up familiars.

She was always disturbingly reminded by just how sharp her lance is when she had to use it on humans.

His head rolled clean off when a peaceful expression on its face.

The vines sprung off the walls like deadly predators, pulling apart the corpse of a man who had fabricated plans to do the exact same thing to others. Kyoko was right that the flowers looked more vicious now; the fangs were now the size of her wrist and the flowers could shriek in a terrifyingly human way. Kyoko walked further into the barrier, away from the sounds of skin being ripped and torn apart behind her.

The vines along the wall were pulsing as they swallowed gulps of what was formerly Miyamoto Tsubasa. Kyoko presumed that the food was being sent directly to the creator of this barrier.

She was right, and gazed in resignation and shame at the monster she helped create.

She walked into a room that looked like a green colosseum. She stood along a thin stretch of walkable ground. There is a hemisphere below with massive vines converging in the centre, where a massive gluttonous creature lay, greedily consuming all that was brought to her.

The witch looked like a venus fly trap with an engorged body that clearly resembled a morbibly obese blob of…something. This was one of the most hideous witches Kyoko had ever seen.

The witch struggled to turn its head to her. Kyoko watched in morbid fascination as two lumps started moving around underneath the flesh of its swollen purple head. The lumps eventually emerged where there were two small slits to reveal beady little black eyes to peer at Kyoko curiously.

The entire head moved as it opened its gargantuan mouth, two long rows of viciously long fangs being bared to Kyoko.

No, that's not what it was doing.

It was smiling at her.

There was a wreath of giant fern leaves at the base of its head. One of the leaves raised itself and shook. Kyoko realized it was waved at her.

Kyoko waved back uncertainly.

One of the vines that had been connected to a bulb that sucked slithered over to her. It paused in front of her and started convulsing. Kyoko could see something slowly moving up from the base of the witch through the vine and up to her.

_Fuck this thing is about to spit acid at me, isn't it? _

Kyoko stepped back, holding her spear at the ready. She didn't have to though.

A chunk of a partially digested rib cage was spat out at her feet. The flower reached down and picked it up, trying to offer it to her.

"Yeah…no thanks." Kyoko tried to decline as politely as possible.

It was moments like this that she was reminded that witches had once been human girls. Kyoko imagined that this girl had not been popular, was maybe ugly, and desperate for friends and went about it in all the wrong ways.

"Yeah, I know what that's like."

Kyoko knew that if she was going to kill this witch, she was going to have to do it fast. This was yet another instance where having her fascination magic would have been profoundly useful.

_Can't do anything about that now. _

Kyoko smiled politely to the flower that appeared to be attempting to smile back. She then quickly darted underneath it, running down to the base of the pit and piercing the neck of the witch. Her spear was buried to the hilt before she ripped it out.

The witch screamed in a low-pitched howl of fury. All of the vines immediately retracted from their feeding frenzy. Kyoko took the opportunity to stab the witch again, this time making a long vertical cut that she hoped would slice it in two.

It didn't.

A barrage of vines with shrieking flowers came down on her. Kyoko jumped out of the way, erecting a diamond lattice barrier around her. The swarm of vines surrounded her, engulfing her in darkness.

_I'm fucked._

* * *

Sayaka's thoughts were racing in a hundred directions at once.

On the one hand, she still had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on. They had run all the way to the Old Industrial District, essentially hitching an illegal ride on the roof of a passing sky train.

On the other hand, she had literally jumped out of a fourth story balcony in front of three of her closest friends. _Fuck I hope Hitomi doesn't tell my parents about that. _

Sayaka was taking the moment on the roof of the train to catch her breath and process everything.

Yuma reached over, tugging on the sleeve of Sayaka's black coat. Sayaka looked at her, silently asking what to do. Yuma jumped off the train. _I guess that's what. _

Sayaka tried to follow Yuma's grace but failed miserably. While Yuma landed perfectly on her feet from the speeding train ten stories above, Sayaka had to duck and roll when she landed. She wasn't hurt though.

"Come on, let's go!" Yuma ordered, running down an alley.

Sayaka could feel the witch they were pursuing now. She was stunned that Yuma could sense this all the way from Hitomi's apartment. She'd have to learn was Yuma's trick was.

They ran into the barrier. It looked like a mossy cave with large stripes of grey uncovered rock. Yuma ran down the narrow cave passage without any apparent concern to check for familiars. Sayaka was a bit more cautious.

She stepped forward, hearing a sort of splash. She looked down.

She was stepping in a puddle of blood.

The urge to vomit rose as she remembered the woman whose guts she'd lied in not that long ago. She resisted it.

The urge to vomit and scream rose again when she saw a face with a vacant expression staring at her a few feet away.

A face without a body.

A face that she _recognized. _

"Miyamoto?" Sayaka wasn't even sure why she asked that. He clearly couldn't answer her.

She was conflicted as she looked down the cave where Yuma had run. She looked back at the head and down the cave.

She made a split second decision that she hoped wouldn't be fatal for Yuma.

She grabbed the head and ran out of the labyrinth. The entrance had been in an alley and there was a dumpster nearby. She threw the head in there, slamming the lid shut and hoped that no one would be attracted by the noise. She ran back into the labyrinth and sprinted to the center.

She couldn't even tell what she was looking at.

It looked like there was a giant pit of vines wrapping over something in the middle. Yuma was running around a rim on the top, the same rim Sayaka was standing on. Yuma was looking for a way to breach the mass of squirming plants.

"WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU?!" Yuma screamed from the other side. Sayaka could barely hear is over the sound of the groaning plants below.

Sayaka returned with a sort of culpable sheepish shrug. Yuma looked angry and had the face that Sayaka thought made it look like she could be very, very mean. Yuma sprinted along the rim and Sayaka ran over to her so they met halfway.

"Someone is trapped inside that pit. The witch is down there too. Both of them are completely covered by the vines."

"Either of us trying to jump in there would be suicide." Sayaka noted. She could tell she was being horribly pessimistic. "We need to get the vines to open up from here."

Yuma looked down, pulling on her hair _hard_. Sayaka thought she might tear her hair out.

"I can't tell where exactly she is in there…" Yuma was starting to shiver. Sayaka could recognize what was happening. She was about to start crying.

"Don't worry! We'll help whoever's in there." She reassured her. She sounded so confident even _she _believed it. She knew she would.

She just had to figure out how.

* * *

Kyoko's thoughts were racing in a hundred directions at once.

_I'm about to die. I'm actually about to die. _

_I didn't say goodbye to Yuma. _

_I didn't save the church. _

_Yuma's last memories of me are going to be saying that she didn't like me. _

_I never actually hung out with Sayaka. _

_I should have visited Mami's grave more. _

_I wish I-_

Her ever growing list of regrets was cut short by a loud explosion from above. The vines stopped in their question to constrict her, opening slightly so she could see light. She couldn't see what was happening, but she could tell that she had a potential ally up there who showed up in the nick of time.

A magical girl who somehow knew she was down there and came at the exact time she needed help most.

"Yuma, get out of here! Go! Run!" Kyoko shouted, hoping the younger one could hear her. "Go!"

This witch was way too strong. There was no way Yuma could take her on her own.

Kyoko took a deep breath and prepared to do something stupid.

She released her barrier spell and whipped her spear through the vines, cutting through a number of them and effectively distracting the witch.

She heard the flowers shriek in anger as some of their kind were severed. She summoned a base of diamonds to jump off of.

As she was about to leap, six blue walls surrounded her so she was encased in a cube.

_What the-_

"Don't step off your diamonds! Kyoko, don't step off your diamonds!" Kyoko could hear Yuma shriek.

Kyoko was about to ask her what the hell was going when she noticed a blue blur speed directly past her, slamming through layers of vines and straight through the vines below.

The witch howled briefly before it spluttered and the labyrinth disappeared. It was replaced by a human shriek of agony instead. Kyoko was horrified.

"YUMA! YUMA!" She ran forward toward the girl in pain.

Kyoko was stunned when the alley appeared. Yuma was standing next to another magical girl, the blue blur that was writhing on the ground. She was badly burned and barely even looked human.

_So the witch did have acid attacks. _

Yuma kneeled by the girl, brought her staff in front of her and closed her eyes in concentration. A green circle went around all three of them. Kyoko felt a cool sensation rush over a few scratches she'd had, but it was nothing bad.

The girl took significantly more time for her skin to be regrown. Significantly meant an extra fifteen seconds.

Kyoko jumped up and hugged Yuma tightly. "You're a dummy. You're such a dummy! Don't scare me like that again!" She scolded.

"Me? You're the one who went in there alone!" Yuma retorted but was smiling and hugged her back. She'd been crying. "I was so scared you were going to die and the last thing I said to you was that I didn't like you. I actually do, I promise."

Kyoko laughed lightly. "I know. I know." She smiled

The girl in blue armour and a white cape was groaning on the ground, struggling to get up. Kyoko reached down.

"So you've got a new friend, huh?" She asked Yuma. She wasn't overly thrilled by there being a new girl, but she had to admit, she had just saved her life.

"Yeah." She said nervously, like she was afraid Kyoko would be upset. "Uh, well this is-"

The knight in the shining armour rolled over and sat up.

"Kyoko?"

"SAYAKA?!"

_You have got to be FUCKING kidding me._

* * *

Sayaka had never felt a physical pain quite like this before.

Realistically, this had been a bad idea. There must have been some other alternative. But no, she just _had _to be the daring hero.

They had successfully found out where the woman was trapped below. Sayaka had even put mirrors around her to keep her safe.

Yuma was screaming something but Sayaka wasn't listening. Yuma mentioned she was nervous about throwing her blast down there because it tended to explode when combined with Sayaka's deflections. An explosion right next to some of her mirrors could lead to lethal attacks being thrown around and killing themselves in the process.

So naturally, Sayaka decided to propel _herself_ in the mirrors. Not her bullets, because that would just be too straightforward of course (she thought in hindsight sarcastically).

Her sword sliced through the vines easily when she was spending down.

As it turns out, the witch's belly was basically a giant pit of acid.

That she launched herself straight into.

Her skin was blistering and pieces of her muscles were melting. Some of the metal of her armour were being smoldered into her skin.

Needless to say, the pain was excruciating.

Then she started to feel relief, bit by bit. After her eyes had grown back, she could see that she was enveloped by a comforting green glow. Her lungs were retaining oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide as they were supposed to her. Her heart was connected to all of the arteries and veins in her body, sending blood where it should go.

She could think.

She was safe.

When the green glow dissipated, she was still out of it. She rolled over with blurry vision. Yuma was hugging somebody red.

_Little help guys. _

They couldn't hear her. She sat up as she blinked, bring her eyes back into focus.

She looked up and saw Kyoko in a red dress holding a crimson and golden spear.

"Kyoko?" Her thoughts were still sluggish.

"SAYAKA?!"

Sayaka continued blinking. Everything seemed to make sense but nothing did. Her head felt heavy and she dropped it forward between her legs.

"Hang on." Yuma ordered softly and the green glow came back.

This time, she felt much more awake.

"Sorry, you had some nasty brain damage I didn't fix. You're set now." Yuma offered kindly and helped Sayaka to her feet. "Congratulations; you've officially had your first major injury as a magical girl!" She joked.

"Yeehaw." She replied sarcastically.

Kyoko was staring blankly at her. Sayaka wasn't sure what to say. In some ways, yeah, she hadn't expected Kyoko to be a magical girl. But in other ways, it made complete and total sense. That was why Yuma's last name was sometimes Chitose and sometimes Sakura. That was why they didn't look alike at all.

It still didn't answer why Yuma had lied about her family situation at all though.

Still, it might be better if they were a bit more separated. The less contact Sayaka had with Kyoko outside of Tomi's, the lower her chances of getting caught were.

"Yuma, how long have you been working with her?"

"A few weeks now. I've been mentoring her."

"_Mentoring _her?"

"I'm a bit of a newbie." Sayaka tried to stay merry, but Kyoko clearly wasn't. It was hard to stay perky. "I contracted pretty recently. I guess I joined the game a bit late!"

"The game, huh?" Kyoko seemed pissed off.

"Kyo, please stop." Yuma begged quietly.

"You think this is a game? Tell me, what else is a game to you?" _What? _

"Uh, I'm not sure what you mean. It was just an expression I didn't actually mean-"

"_Why _are _you_ with Yuma? Why did you team up with her?"

"Kyubey said it was a good idea. And it was! We're a pretty great team. Our powers complement each other really well." Sayaka looked to Yuma for some back up. Yuma was wincing and shaking her head and mouthing 'no, stop!'

"Kyubey, you trusted something that _rat _had to say?!" Kyoko screamed at the youngest in their dysfunctional trio. "Did you know? Did you know that's where she'd gotten the idea to ask you?"

"Uh, no, I didn't. I thought she just…knew." Yuma finished lamely. She was fidgeting.

"I'm sick of you _lying _to me! No wonder you've been lying so much! You're hanging out with this bitch!" Kyoko pointed at her.

"What-" Sayaka started but she wasn't even sure what she wanted to ask.

Kyoko started to laugh.

"Let me guess, let me guess. I can't believe I didn't notice this before. Your boyfriend; wait, no, your _friend's _boyfriend; he was miraculously healed recently, right? Ahahaha! You wasted your wish on _him_? Tell me, does he know about your _other _trysts?"

"Other _trysts_? I don't know what you mean." Sayaka was feeling nervous. A few of Kyoko's ominous comments implied she might know something. _Oh fuck she knows. _

"Yeah you fucking do! Or are you just that stupid. How _Precious_."

_Fuck, she knows. _

"How-"

"Not a lot of people would be dumb enough to take off their disguise right in front of their enemy's base. I'm surprised that made you cry. Opening your legs for information kind of seemed like your thing. Probably the only thing you're good at, huh junkie?"

Sayaka wanted to refute something, anything she'd said. But she couldn't.

"Yeah. I was pretty stupid." She admitted. She may as well be the bigger person.

"So, does your boy toy know about this?"

"He's not my boy toy."

"You're not answering my question, so I'm guessing no. I wonder how he would react if I told him? Oh, or even better. I wonder how baby Kurosawa would react if I told _him _about you and him? Not only is his dear Precious sleeping around, but she's an undercover cop! It's priceless!"

Sayaka's heart felt like it stopped.

"Don't bring either of them into this."

"Oh, but why not? I wonder who would hold up better? A Kurosawa or a guy who's been crippled for the last few years?" Kyoko's face twisted into a malicious smirk. "Maybe they'll cripple him all over again before they go after you and your family."

"KEEP THEM OUT OF THIS! THIS IS BETWEEN YOU AND ME!"

Sayaka stepped forward, her sword morphing at her side. She hadn't consciously thought to do it.

But it was a sign of aggression, and it was all Kyoko needed for all hell to break loose.

Kyoko dodged the sword, thrusting her spear at Sayaka. Sayaka thought she dodged it expertly until it broke into chain segments, wrapping around her and slamming her into the wall of the dirty alley they were in. The spear was brought down on her but Sayaka blocked it with her sword which practically absorbed it, giving Sayaka a good anchor to throw Kyoko across the alley over Yuma's head.

Kyoko flipped and landed on her feet perfectly, pulling her spear with her. It made her sword jerk forward, making Sayaka land flat on her face. Her sword let the spear go. Sayaka scrambled to get up, just in time to avoid another jab, and this time she near to clear the area before the spear broke apart.

Instead, she got a swift kick in the head from Kyoko.

"Fuck!" She was knocked down. She grasped her head and looked up in time to see Kyoko jump onto a landing two storeys above them.

"Game over!" She shouted as she catapulted herself downwards, spear poised to stab Sayaka through her heart.

Sayaka felt like the world was going in slow motion. She closed her eyes tight as she moved her shield in front of her.

"KYOKO, NO!"

* * *

Kyoko had never felt a physical pain quite like this before.

She'd had her legs and arms pulled off. She'd had small stab wounds, big slash wounds, even gunshot wounds.

But she'd never had a massive stab wound that nearly disconnected her from the chest down.

Kyoko had been stupid. She had been keeping an eye out for the sword that liked to change shapes. She assumed it was like her spear, but Kyoko had had the advantage of many more years' experience.

But in all her experience, she never once paused to wonder what the lame shield she had was for.

And it _reflected _things for fuck's sakes.

"KYOKO!" Yuma cried. The spear had actually pierced Kyoko's chest backwards. Only the front tip hadn't entered her body. Kyoko's magic told her that her lower torso was in pain, but her body didn't. The thing had clearly broken her damn spine.

The lance hand punctured her heart; she had no blood flow to her body. Her magic was sustaining her, but body was a wreck. Her instincts were telling her to get the thing as far away from her soul gem as possible; her spear's entry wound was a mere three inches below it.

"Oh my god. Oh my god." Sayaka said uselessly, staring at the bloody mess that was Kyoko. _Yeah, I get it. You got me, bitch. _

"I have to pull it out. I'm sorry Kyo, I'm really sorry." Yuma held Kyoko down as she tried to gently pull the spear the rest of the way through; the thickest part has already passed through, after all.

When it came out, Kyoko flopped onto the ground in a bloody heap. She had completely sliced up her heart, both lungs, and her spinal cord.

Yuma's familiar green light surrounded her and she felt the ability to breathe and circulate blood throughout her body return to her, both of which were abilities she had taken for granted for years. Her body was closed up and she was fine.

Kyoko got up, brushing herself off. She made a move like she was about to walk away. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sayaka visibly relax.

_Big mistake, rookie. _

Kyoko leapt back, spear blazing and ready to aim to sever her left arm. If the shield's gone, she's got no hope.

Yuma knocked her spear out of place, making Kyoko nearly lose her footing.

"STOP! BOTH OF YOU!" Yuma screamed, stepping between them. "This isn't going anywhere good. Don't do this, please."

"Whose side are you on?!" Kyoko yelled. She had known and basically raised Yuma for _six _years. What had this girl done? They'd known each other for a few weeks.

"Right now? Neither. This is ridiculous. I can tell that she hurt your feelings but this isn't the right way to deal with it." Yuma glared back at her guardian.

"Hurt my feelings? You think _that's _what this is about? If this cunt has her way, we lose our only source of income. She wants to arrest my best clients. Do you not want to go to school? Do you not want to have a stable place to live? Do you want to live on the streets in hotels, stealing food to live? Remember when I taught you how to live like that? Do you want to go _back _to that?" Kyoko was yelling at Yuma. Sayaka just gaped at them with her sword and shield ready. Looks like she got the message that she should keep her guard up.

"Maybe a career change wouldn't be the worst thing for you." Yuma shrugged, looking away and pretending she didn't care.

"A career change would mean that I have no career. You know I have nothing else that can support both being a magical girl and making enough money for us."

"There's plenty of options. I'm managing it." Sayaka offered, but it was not appreciated to say the least.

"Did you finish high school?" Kyoko snarled.

"Yeah, but not well." She retorted.

"I got up to grade eight before shit happened and I had to drop out. So yeah, this is my only option. Why don't you shut your fucking mouth when you don't know what you're talking about?" She snapped. Sayaka recoiled. Yuma sighed.

"Whatever. Can we just go? This isn't how I want to spend my Saturday night." Yuma said with resignation.

"So how do you want to spend it? With me or with the rat?"

Yuma looked like she was getting frustrated. "Right now, with neither of you. This is getting out of hand."

"Damn right it is. What were you thinking bringing in a third magical girl without telling me? She's a _cop_, for one. Secondly, there's not enough room for three of us. Who are you kidding? We work well because there's only _two_. It's worked well for years, and even then we've had low points. We can't handle three." Kyoko said lowly to her.

"Don't worry about it, Kyoko. I'll back off." Sayaka offered, transforming out of her clothes and into a black trench coat, jeans, and black boots that Kyoko didn't want to acknowledge looked good on her.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You guys can hunt witches your way, I'll hunt mine. We won't have to cross paths aside from the club. In return, you keep my job and friends and family a secret. Alright?"

"That's great and all, but we'd still have you hunting our witches. We're still losing our grief seeds."

"Don't worry about it. I'll only hunt the familiars then. I know Yuma likes to hunt witches more too, but I hate the thought of leaving familiars on the go. You focus on getting your grief seeds, I focus on keeping people safe. We leave my job and my family out of this and Tomi's. Seems like a win-win to me." Sayaka shrugged.

Kyoko was trying to keep herself from laughing. She looked at Yuma, who looked like she felt terrible about something. _So she doesn't know about the soul gems and grief seeds yet…_

"Alright. You're right, that sounds like a great deal to me." Kyoko transformed into her own outfit; a leather jacket and red tank top with black jeans; they were good colours to make blood less noticeable. Kyoko raised her hands in a placating manner. "I'm happy with this."

"Sayaka, you can't do that." Yuma interjected. If looks could kill, Kyoko would have just murdered Yuma. "You don't run out of magic when your soul gem goes black, you become a witch. Witches are former magical girls whose soul gems got corrupted, or went completely black. Only hunting familiars will make you get corrupted too because you won't get grief seeds to clear your soul gem."

Sayaka looked like a fish out of water with the way she was gaping at them. _Yeah, I had about the same reaction too._

"Why the _fuck _did you tell her that?" Kyoko sneered.

"She's my friend. She's the only friend I've ever had besides you." Yuma looked down. "I wish you two could get along a bit better."

"Trust me, you can make way better friends than _her._"

Sayaka shook her head quickly, as it shaking herself out of a trance.

"Alright, so my idea to take the familiars won't work out after all. _Thank you_, Yuma, for telling me that _now_." Sayaka did not sound impressed. She also did not sound like she had fully grasped the gravity of the situation yet. "So Kyoko; what are you going to do? Are you going to go running to Tomi and the Kurosawas about me after all?"

Kyoko narrowed her eyes and made a sudden move forward. Her intent had been to pick the girl up by the collar of her coat and threaten her.

Sayaka had already reacted by transforming back into her magical girl garb, pulling her sword against Kyoko's throat. Kyoko responded in kind.

"I'll think about it." Kyoko said through clenched teeth, ignoring the sword by her jugular lest she go cross-eyed staring at it. Sayaka had done exactly that looking at the spear at her neck and she looked ridiculous.

"What good could possibly come to you from doing that? I mean really. Why would you want to bring my family and friends into this? What would you gain?"

Kyoko knew better than to explain her side business to a _cop_.

There was a sinking feeling in her gut. Sayaka might be onto her. And she could do a lot of damage.

She'd done a fuck ton of damage to the Miyamotos and knew where the Kurosawa base was.

And Kurosawa would throw her under the bus in no time flat if it meant getting a reduced sentence. He'd even told her so.

No, Sayaka was way too dangerous. And Sayaka wasn't a human anymore; she was a magical girl like them. She was a goner anyways. She posed too many threats. She was fair game.

_I'm sorry Yuma. _

"Maybe it would be nice to see…" She paused and focused her magic. It was hard, but she could do it.

Sayaka opened her mouth to gasp but couldn't as a spear was shoved through her chest from behind, puncturing her lungs and heart, the point of it emerging right where her cleavage was ridiculously prominent.

Kyoko's double wasn't smiling. Neither was Kyoko.

"You getting stabbed in the back instead." The spear was pulled back. Sayaka fell forward, her neck being cut on Kyoko's spear in front of her. It missed her jugular though.

"Sayaka!"

"Yuma, we're leaving _now_."

Yuma had already mostly healed Sayaka though. Kyoko reached forward and tried to pull Yuma back. She was stunned when Yuma actually launched her backwards from an energy wave.

Yuma had _never _attacked Kyoko before.

By the time Kyoko got back up, Sayaka was sitting up, rubbing her chest that was now completely mended.

Sayaka glared at Kyoko before leaping at her, screaming furiously with her sword ready to strike. Kyoko readied her spear to defend herself.

Yuma hit Sayaka with an energy wave too.

"STOP THIS RIGHT NOW!" She screamed, tears falling down her face. "You can go ahead and keep fighting all you want, but I'm just going to keep on healing both of you until _I _turn into a witch, so _stop this_. Please…"

Yuma sat down and started to whimper. She pulled her knees to her chest and buried her head in her arms.

"This is all my fault." She mewled.

Both adults transformed out of their clothes.

"How about we say we both got the other impaled and call it a truce?" Kyoko offered, extending her hand to shake Sayaka's.

Sayaka looked at it uncertainly. "What about my family?"

"I won't say a word for now." Kyoko promised, but it pained her to do so. She meant it though. Sayaka closed her eyes, nodding and shaking Kyoko's.

Yuma's sad blue eyes looked up at them. Kyoko and Sayaka both reached their hands down to help her up. She accepted both.

Sayaka looked like she was having an intense internal debate. She sighed, as if she were relenting.

"Kyoko has some pretty good reasons for not liking me, Yuma. It's not her fault. I…I've done some pretty bad things to her. And I lied to you too. I knew you two knew each other and never said anything. I hope you're not too mad at her. She has every right to hate me. So Yuma, and Kyoko…I'm really sorry. To both of you. I'd really like to keep fighting with you in the future though Yuma, if you're both okay with it."

Kyoko sighed. A lot had happened tonight. _A lot_. And she didn't want to let Sayaka to be the bigger person.

"Let's just go to bed. Yuma's right, nothing good is coming from this. We'll talk about it in the morning." She walked away. She heard Yuma rushing to catch up with her. She noticed Yuma for waving back uncertainly to Sayaka, but didn't chide her for it. She was grateful Yuma decided to follow her. She wanted to get them both out of there _now_.

Kyoko should have stayed behind, or at least monitored her nemesis for a bit longer. If she had, she might have noticed the girl pull something out of the dumpster that should have disappeared in the labyrinth.

* * *

Sayaka had never known how to deal with long hair. She was reminded of this mercilessly as she struggled to trudge through the windy weather in her long blonde wig.

She wanted to adjust her hair, but the thought of letting go of the box in her hand petrified her. She couldn't think of anything that would be worse if she dropped the package and its contents somehow came rolling out.

_Well, maybe becoming a witch would be worse. _

She had a purpose in this endeavor that led her through the seediest parts of the Old Industrial District. But her footsteps were hollow; she felt like she was wandering.

_What's the point? I'm going to become one of the monsters I wanted to fight against so badly. _

The world was so funny sometimes. Just a few short weeks ago, she thought her life couldn't get any worse and she hated herself. She felt like that was nothing compared to now.

_What kind of witch will I be? Will I be hungry for human flesh all the time like the giant plant? Will I just wander around my labyrinth aimlessly like the astronaut? Maybe I'll drive people insane like the cuckoo clock? _

She thought of the rabbit that ran away from her and the farmers for hours. Now that Sayaka thought about it, the farmers weren't only shooting at her; they were shooting at the witch too.

_That's what I'll be. I'll be a witch that's terrified of her familiars. _

Sayaka blinked quickly a number of times to try to force the tears back in.

_This isn't the time to think about that. I need to keep my head in this. _

She thought morbidly that she had just made a pretty good pun in her head. She may be dying soon, but that didn't mean she was going to die today. She still had the chance to make a positive difference in the world.

And right now, that started with getting the head of Miyamoto Tsubasa to Ryo, one way or another.

Sayaka had to use all of her knowledge of forensics to plan this perfectly.

She had her disguise on. She was wearing the blonde wig, contoured her face, and wore grey contact lenses. She looked a lot more like a potential cousin of Rin than Sayaka.

She was wearing gloves she bought yesterday and had a number of bills she received for paying for a bag of chips with a 10,000 yen note. She never touched them herself; only through the gloves.

Now, she was on her way to scout out an addict or homeless person who would take the package and mail it to the station, with the promise that they could keep the change. She wrote the address of the station with a stencil and left a fake return address from New Mitakihara.

She really, really hoped this would be good enough to keep her out of trouble. She didn't think she would be able to explain the whole magical girl phenomenon at the station without being sent to an insane asylum, or at least put on disability for a few months.

Or, more likely, everyone would assume she was using again and was hallucinating.

Another strong gust hit, pushing the synthetic blonde fibers into her mouth and glossed lips, making it stick. Sayaka tried to blow them out in a very unladlylike manner, but it did nothing.

"Do you need some help?" A gravelly voice asked her from behind. Sayaka turned around and saw a rather disheveled man with bloodshot eyes and poorly kept grey hair looking at her.

_I found my guy. _

"Yes, thank you!" Sayaka passed the box to him. She rearranged her hair.

"Big package to send to the police. What's in it?" He asked curiously, shaking the box. Sayaka had to restrain herself from squawking.

"Nothing important. But I'll make you a deal. Here." She passed him 9,700 yen in notes. "If you drop that box off at the post office and have it delivered with express shipping, I'll let you keep the change."

"But that shipping would only be about 1,000 yen, wouldn't it?" He asked slowly. Sayaka suspected he had a nasty hangover. "Oh! I get it. Yeah, you have a deal. What's your name?"

"Hitomi." Sayaka smiled. It's not that she was trying to frame her friend; no one would think for a second that it would be _that _Hitomi. Hitomi was simply one of the most common names Sayaka could think of.

"Hitomi. You have a day." He smiled, walking away with the box.

The way Sayaka saw it, she had a win-win situation.

Either he would mail the box and it would arrive at the station; or we would open it, find out what was inside it and the cops would be called anyways.

She hurried to get as far away as possible before the latter could happen.

The wind blew her hair in her face again.

"Blagh!" She exclaimed as she brushed the wig out of her face again.

She'd tried having long hair when she was five. It didn't work well.

_"Sayaka, hold still! We need to comb your hair or else you'll look like a mess at your party. Is that what you want?" Her mother was frustrated. But the comb __hurt__. Sayaka didn't think her hair looked that bad. It couldn't look bad. _

_Because it was long now. _

_A few months ago, her Mommy let her have Madoka and Kyousuke, her two best friends in the whole wide world over for a playdate. They had been having a great time. _

_Until Kyousuke asked her when she had a girl's name. _

_"Because Sayaka's a girl, silly!" Madoka laughed in good nature. _

_"No he's not. He has short hair and wears boy's clothes! He's a boy!" Kyousuke sounded like he was pointing out the obvious. _

_Sayaka had been mortified and resolved to grow her hair longer and wear pretty girl's clothes. Her Mommy had been excited to buy her pretty dresses, but her Daddy wasn't; he liked the clothes she had. She missed the pants sometimes because she felt like she could run around in them better; Mommy hated it when she came home with grass and mud stains on her dress. But she was happy that her hair was already almost down to her chest; it was even longer than Madoka's now! _

_"My hair's fine, Mommy! Stop!" She tried to squirm out of her grasp, but her Mommy was a lot bigger than her. By bigger, Sayaka meant taller and stronger. She was still pretty skinny; in her pictures for class, Mommy was always a stick figure; not a round one like her teacher was. _

_"No it's not! Do you want me to bring your father in here? Maybe he can comb your hair instead?" _

_Sayaka stopped struggling immediately. She knew that it hurt when Mommy combed her hair, but it was even worse when he did. He nearly pulled it out every time. _

_"That's okay." She sat politely, trying to keep from crying as her Mommy pulled the tangles apart. _

_"Alright, good job! You look so pretty Sayaka. Now, how about we put your pretty pink dress on? Your friends should be coming over any minute."_

_"Do you think everyone will be able to tell that I'm a girl?" Sayaka asked hopefully. _

_"Of course they will! They'll even be able to tell you're the prettiest girl in the whole world. It's your birthday! Today's your day, so let's get your dress on." Her Mommy smiled. Sayaka grinned, running to put it on. _

_Her birthday party was so much fun. They had bobbing for apples, a movie, a bouncy castle; they even had a clown! Sayaka didn't even recognize most of the kids at the party. Her Daddy said that some of them were kids of his friends who he worked with. Sayaka didn't care; Madoka and Kyousuke were there, and they were the only two she needed to have to play with._

_"You sure know how to put on a party!" Madoka's cool Mommy complimented Sayaka's Mommy. Sayaka's Mommy smiled. _

_"I do my best! She's been so excited about this for months. It's the least we could do."_

_"How much did this cost?" Madoka's nice but not-as-cool Daddy asked. Sayaka's Mommy waved her hand to ignore the question. Mommy did that a lot when Daddy asked how much her clothes cost. Sayaka tried doing that too sometimes when her Mommy asked her if she'd brushed her teeth and hadn't, but she got in trouble when she did._

_"Alright everyone! Who wants cake?" Her Daddy asked, bringing out a big blue cake. Sayaka couldn't keep the big grin off her face; it was her favourite! Confetti cake! _

_Everyone sang the song while Sayaka gloated in the attention. The cake was so pretty; it even had a princess on it! _

_"Happy birthday Fuzz?" Madoka's Daddy asked. _

_"Kenji!" Sayaka's Mommy scolded. _

_"They can't read, what difference does it make?" _

_"Alright Sayaka, do you have a wish?" Madoka's Mommy asked. Sayaka nodded eagerly; she did! She wanted to have the longest hair in the world! _

_"Okay, now remember. You need to blow out all the candles sweet pea." Her Mommy said. Sayaka nodded. Everybody knew that. _

_She took a deep breath and leaned forward to blow them all out. _

_Sayaka did a bad job, because she didn't blow them all out. _

_There was one that was too close to her and she missed it. _

_It didn't miss her hair though. _

_"Sayaka, your hair!" Madoka screamed, noticing it first. Sayaka was about to scream, noticing that her face was starting to feel really hot when her Daddy threw some soda on her. _

_Half of her hair was gone and her pretty pink dress was covered in brown Coca-Cola. _

_Sayaka's lower lip started to quiver. She didn't want to cry with everyone looking at her. That would be so embarrassing. _

_"Oh honey, are you alright?" Her Mommy sat down next to her and gave her a hug. That pushed her over the edge. She started to bawl. Then Madoka started to bawl. Then some kids Sayaka didn't know started to cry too. _

_Parents were cooing at their kids everywhere to try to calm them down. The clown was desperately making balloon animals to cheer everyone up. _

_"That was so cool Sayaka! Your hair was on __fire__!" Kyousuke smiled excitedly. He was trying to make her feel better, but it just made her cry more. _

_Sayaka's parents pulled her inside away from everyone else. _

_"It's okay Fuzz, your safe. Madoka saw it fast. You're okay." Her Daddy said nicely, patting her hair. Sayaka was squeezed in between them. _

_"No I'm not! My hair's short again! Everyone's going to think I'm a boy again!" She cried harder. _

_"Is that what you're worried about? You silly thing! Having short hair doesn't mean anything!" Madoka's cool Mommy had followed them inside. Sayaka looked at her with big, teary eyes. _

_"It doesn't?" _

_"No. Do I look like a boy?" _

_Sayaka shook her head fervently. Madoka's Mommy was cool and pretty. No one would ever think she was a boy! _

_"Well, I have short hair too. Look, your hair that got burned is still a bit longer than mine. Looking like a girl has nothing to do with your hair, or even what you wear. It's all about how you act. If you want, I can take you to get your hair cut. It might look a lot like mine. Is that okay, or will that be too embarrassing?" _

_"That would be cool, because you're cool! Thanks Madoka's Mom!" Sayaka grinned. She was excited to have hair like someone as cool as her. Maybe that would make her cool too? _

_"Yes, that's very nice of you Junko, thank you." Sayaka's Mom said overly politely. _

_"It's really nice!" Sayaka agreed. _

Sayaka still felt like a kid most of the time. She wasn't sure what feeling like an adult was like; she just figured it was one of those things you just _knew _when it started. She still felt the same as before.

But thinking back on that...yeah, everything's changed. From Madoka and her Mom being gone to going through the addiction to becoming a cop to becoming a magical girl…it's all changed.

She wasn't a kid anymore.

But she wasn't an adult either. She was something weird in between in some sort of purgatory.

She felt her energy levels drop. She pulled out her soul gem and noticed that it was getting murkier.

_I guess I'd better find a witch before Kyoko does. _

_Would that take a grief seed away from Yuma though? _

Sayaka's moral dilemma was cut short by her wig blowing into her mouth again. She spat out the yellow hairs and tried to tuck them behind her ears.

She was glad when she got home, taking the long way as she always did when she was in disguise. She tried harder to be more difficult to follow; if Akemi could follow her, someone less friendly could too.

She pulled the wig off and let it fall gracelessly onto the bed. She washed her face in time to be ready for parents when they picked her up.

If they could tell that anything was wrong with Sayaka, they didn't say it.

She slept fitfully that night, dreaming of witches and criminals and Kyoko choking on her own organs. She was going to go in and continue investigating the Megumi murder tomorrow.

At least that was what she thought she would be doing.

"Good morning Detective Miki." Chiyo greeted, though it was not enthusiastic to say the least. Her elderly partner was with her too. They were all sitting around Ryo's desk drinking coffee solemnly. Sayaka doubted that the reason their spirits were low was that it was Monday morning.

"Good morning. What's going on?"

"I would like to share some footage of our interview with who we thought was Miyamoto Suki." Ryo responded tersely, glaring intently at one of his achievement awards on the wall. Sayaka squinted.

"What do you-"

"Just sit down and watch." He commanded impatiently. She obeyed.

The footage started. Two detectives she did not recognize were in an interrogation room with Miyamoto and her lawyer. The lawyer wore a perfectly pressed black suit and had his salt and pepper hair slicked back. Sayaka didn't like the looks of him at all.

"The current date is May 18th, 2032 and the time is 10:22 AM. We are at the Kazamino Police Station with the suspect, Miyamoto Suki and her attorney. Miyamoto Suki was arrested for the murder of Sueda Reiko. We will begin."

They ran through the standard introduction, ensuring that Miyamoto fully understood her rights. She nodded.

Then the real questions started.

"What is your name?"

"Sueda Marilyn."

There was a silence in the room. Sayaka's expression matched the faces of the detectives on the computer monitor.

_Sueda? Like the victim? _

Sayaka felt a knot forming in her stomach.

"Pardon me, what was that?"

"You asked me my name. It's Sueda Marilyn." Suki had her hands clasped in front of her on the table. Her posture was rigid. She looked the detectives straight in the eyes, unblinking. One of the detectives on the tape managed to compose himself rather quickly.

"Does the name Miyamoto Suki mean anything to you?"

"No."

"Do you know Miyamoto Tsubasa?"

"Yes."

"Could you describe your relationship with him?"

"He's my physician." Miyamoto never missed a beat. She answered each question directly and offered no extra details. Sayaka sat in her chair with an expression of indignation and disbelief. Her three colleagues were as stoic as Miyamoto.

"Detective, I fail to see what this has to do with the matter for which my client was arrested." The lawyer argued. He had a smooth, deep voice that Sayaka may have found sexy if she wasn't so repulsed by who he was defending.

"Alright, fine." The other detective, a portly balding man with bits of ginger hair snarled. "Did you murder Sueda Reiko?" He slid a mugshot of what must have been the victim. Sayaka never would have recognized her; she had only seen her with half her head.

"Yes."

"Why would you murder her?"

"Can't you tell from the name? That druggie cunt was my mother. See the resemblance?" Miyamoto picked up the mugshot, holding it next to her face.

Sayaka had to squint to see before she brought her hands to her mouth in shock.

She did see the resemblance. They both had the same fox face.

The woman just looked fifty years older than her.

The detectives on the footage stumbled over their words again. It continued on like that, as Miyamoto described a terrible and neglectful childhood, including but not limited to a younger sibling that died in infancy and was thrown in a dumpster. She went on to say that she sought the woman out to murder her in an act of revenge, and she regretted nothing. She denied knowing Megumi or Atihiko particularly well, even though she was caught on the recording speaking with them. She claimed Megumi was her mother's dealer and she had seen Atihiko around whenever she went to bring her mother home.

Chiyo paused it. Ryo combed his hands through his hair in frustration.

"I spoke with prosecution. It doesn't look good. She even took a lie detector and DNA test and everything she said about her identity and her relationship with the victim were true. We weren't able to ask her any questions about her ties with Kurosawa or Miyamoto because her lawyer was breathing down our necks. We're completely and totally _fucked_." Ryo snarled and slammed his fist against his desk, nearly knocking over Chiyo's styrofoam cup of coffee. Chiyo calmly picked it up before it toppled over.

"I wish I could say I didn't think it would be too good to be true to catch one of them and bring down the rest. I cannot say that I predicted this would be how it would go. I say we should be grateful that we have one and continue to pursue the others. Detective Miki has already found the Kurosawa base, which should make finding evidence that much easier." Chiyo rationalized.

Ryo's desk phone rang. Sayaka could see that caller ID identified it as coming from reception.

"Fuck, hang on." He picked up the phone. "Can this wait? I'm in a meeting." There was some mumbling on the end of the line. Sayaka recognized the word 'package'.

Her stomach twisted in anxiety. Her heart started to beat faster. Her hands felt clammy.

_He sent it. He actually sent it._

She wondered if anyone could tell she was about to panic.

"It must be the results of the autopsy on Megumi. Please open it and send me a briefing. I'll review them later."

_Oh right. Of course. _

She let out the breath she didn't know she was holding. She had been overreacting. Of course the package wouldn't get here that fast!

She heard a shriek outside followed by some commotion.

His phone rang again.

Sayaka could hear the voice distinctly this time. It was Ayumi.

"Captain, you're going to want to come see this package right away."

* * *

Kyoko had known how to deal with long hair for a very long time. She was grateful for that on windy days like these. The breeze was a pleasant temperature, but it wouldn't hurt if it was at least a tad gentler.

She hadn't always been able to deal with long hair though.

She brought her hand up to feel the ribbon that kept her hair manageable. She wished she hadn't thought about it today.

It was going to make going to the church that much more emotional.

_The weather was miserable outside. The torrential downpour combined with vicious winds made it virtually impossible to stay outside for more than a few moments at a time. It was practically like a monsoon out there. _

_So naturally, Kyoko had to go out in it; just for a bit of fun. _

_See, she had a very specific task in mind that the storm would be able to help her with. _

_Kyoko had come back in as quietly as possible. It was a bit hard when her hair was essentially a rat's nest covering her face, but she did her best. _

_She pushed the door to her shared bedroom with Momo open, loving how it creaked spookily. _

_She heard rustling from her bed. Kyoko scurried across the floor on her stomach quickly, hiding underneath Momo's side of the bed. _

"_Kyoko? Is that you?" _

_Kyoko didn't answer. She stayed put. _

_Momo turned the lamp on. _

"_Kyoko, where are you? This isn't funny!" _

'_Oh no, Momo, this is going to be hilarious' Kyoko thought sadistically in response._

"_Kyoko, come on, where are you?" Momo asked, stepping off the bed. _

_Now was Kyoko's chance. _

_Kyoko sprung out from underneath, clutching Momo's ankle. She did her best impression of a zombie, which was made all the better by the wet, wild hair obscuring her face. _

_Momo screamed, falling backwards on her butt. _

_Kyoko burst out laughing. _

_Kyoko 3, Momo 2. _

"_Kyo!" Momo cried. "That wasn't funny!"_

"_You're right, it was hysterical!" _

_At least it was until her parents came rushing it. _

"_What on earth is going on in here?" Her father's deep voice boomed. Momo got up and ran over to him, arms outstretched to signal that she wanted to be picked up and comforted. He jumped a bit himself when he saw Kyoko. "Kyoko?" _

"_Kyoko, what did you do to your __hair__?" Her mother asked in horror from behind her father who had obliged Momo's request. _

"_I just went outside for a bit to mess it up. That's all." Kyoko shrugged as she got up. _

"_Was this another one of your pranks? Girls, this has gone on long enough. Momo is very scared and Kyoko, now you might get a cold. You've both punished yourselves enough. Stop this immediately." Her father ordered. For a rational person, his tone meant that there would be no arguing with him. _

_But Momo was Momo. _

"_No, that's not fair! That means Kyoko wins! She got three pranks but I only got two." _

"_Which must be really embarrassing for you because you started this." Kyoko grinned. Momo had started it by pulling Kyoko's chair out from under her, making her topple over backwards. Kyoko then hid all of Momo's toys and sent her on a wild goose chase across the property. Completely unintentionally, when Momo went to find her toys, she had found that a mouse had made itself at home amongst some of her tattered stuffed bears which they decided to count as an extra point for Kyoko. Momo got Kyoko back by putting a spider on her face when she slept, making her almost piss herself when she woke up. _

_So now Kyoko did this. _

"_You'll get the last laugh, Momo. I promise you that. Come on Kyoko. Let's untangle your hair." Her mother said sternly. _

_Kyoko's grin dropped immediately. She hated having her hair combed just after showers when her hair hadn't been that messy before. _

_This was going to hurt. _

_Momo adopted her grin. _

"_Ow ow ow ow owwwww! Mom, that hurts!" Kyoko complained as the comb got stuck again. She didn't want her Dad or Momo to see the tears that were prickling in the corner of her eyes. _

_They did though; Momo wasn't grinning anymore. Her father looked displeased with her._

_Kyoko three, Momo three. _

"_You should have thought of this before you went out in the storm to deliberately get your hair messy, now hold still." Her mother chided as she tightly held Kyoko's hair by the roots to yank on the comb. It broke through the knots. _

"_OW!" _

"_You're almost done. Just a few more." _

_It took a total of forty minutes to untangle her hair. Her mother started to dry her hair off with a towel. _

"_Kyoko, we should cut your hair. It's just too much to handle." _

"_But I like my hair." Kyoko said dejectedly. She really did. She had seen some posters when she was a kid of pretty princesses; they all had long hair. She wanted to look like them. _

"_I know you do, but your hair isn't healthy. It gets too tangled too quickly and I don't think you know how to take care of it. Maybe you can grow it out again in a few years after you've lost interest in playing outside in storms." _

"_Those girls on the shampoo posters all have long hair that looks really nice. I'll just look after mine like they do." _

_Her mother sighed. _

"_No, you can't. They use special hair products that cost a lot of money, Kyoko. It would be much easier to just cut it. Just having it around mine or Momo's lengthy would be easier; it's still pretty long." Her mother attempted to compromise. She pulled a pair of scissors out of their bare bathroom cabinet. _

"_I promise I'll stop playing outside then! I'll even stay inside all the time! Please let me keep my hair!" Kyoko pleaded and tried to hide her hair behind her head. _

"_It's not that big of a deal, Kyoko. It will grow back anyways. This will be better for it." Her mother urged. _

"_I like my hair! It's the only nice thing I have! Please let me keep my hair!" She was starting to whimper pathetically. She was worried she might cry. She was freaked out. She didn't want to lose her hair! She'd been working hard on growing it out for years!_

"_How about we all go to bed and talk about this in the morning when we're less tired." Her father interjected. Kyoko smiled at him gratefully. _

_Her mother looked at him disapprovingly, but put the scissors back. _

_They didn't talk about it in the morning. In fact, they didn't talk about it for the next two weeks. _

_Then Kyoko's birthday came. _

'_Happy birthday dear Kyoko! Happy birthday to you!" Her parents sang. Momo shouted it. _

_Kyoko smiled uncomfortably. She hated having all of the attention on her, even if it was just her family. _

"_Make a wish." Her mother smiled, pushing the small, flat yellow cake towards her. There was no icing and only one small candle, but it was still a cake and Kyoko hadn't thought they would be able to have on this year. She was happy for it. _

_Kyoko blew out the candle, wishing to be able to keep her hair. Her family clapped lightly. _

"_You're getting so old. May you have a wonderful year ahead of you." Her mother smiled and gave her a hug. Kyoko blushed when her mother kissed her forehead. She wasn't a little kid anymore! She was twelve now! _

_But when she saw her father smiling at them, she knew she should just let her Mom do this. She hugged her back._

_Her Mom let her go. _

"_So, Kyoko. You're the birthday girl. What would you like to do?" _

_Kyoko thought about what game they should play. They had a deck of cards. Momo was starting to understand crazy eights, which Kyoko liked a lot more than go fish. _

_Kyoko knew better than to ask for presents. _

"_Would you like to open your present?" Her father asked kindly. Kyoko's jaw dropped. _

"_I have a present?" _

"_You do indeed." He beamed. Her mother looked confused. _

"_Yay! Kyoko, open your present!" Momo cheered, bouncing up and down excitedly. Kyoko nodded enthusiastically. She wondered what they could have gotten her. _

_Her father handed her a small, flat package wrapped in a light brown paper. It certainly wasn't festive by any means, but it was still wrapped. _

_Kyoko tore it open and saw a long, thin piece of black cloth. _

"_What's this?" She was curious. She couldn't tell. Neither could Momo, if her unintelligent expression was anything to go by. _

"_It's a ribbon. Here." Her father got up and went behind her. He pulled her hair up and back. "Pass me the ribbon please?" _

_Kyoko did as she was told. She felt her hair getting pulled tightly together. Momo gaped in awe. _

"_You're so pretty Kyoko!" She admired._

"_There! All done!" Her father said proudly. Kyoko wanted to see what she looked like. She darted from the room to the bathroom, looking in the mirror. _

_She stared at herself. She almost didn't even recognize her reflection. _

_Without all of her hair in her face, she looked a lot older. Her face was slimmer and her eyes popped more. _

_There was a delicate bow on top of her head. She turned to the side to look at her long red hair cascading down her back instead of sticking out sloppily like it usually did. _

_She was a lot prettier than she thought she was. _

_She smiled and ran back to the kitchen. _

"_I love it Dad! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" She ran into arms to hug him and kiss him on the cheek. He smiled and hugged her back tightly. Kyoko didn't see the way her mother looked like her heart had just melted._

"_It was nothing. This should help make your hair easier to control. Happy birthday Kyoko." _

_Her birthday wish had come true!_

_They played crazy eights as best as they could; Momo had gotten confused again because she couldn't understand why eights were special and sevens weren't ('Seven's a nice number too!'). _

_Kyoko kept reaching up to feel the ribbon. It was soft and she loved it. _

_There was something familiar about the fabric, and she couldn't figure out what. _

_When everyone decided to go to bed at 9:00 pm, she hugged her parents one last time before they walked to their room. Kyoko watched them as they left. _

_Her eyes strayed to the bottom of her father's robes, which were now much shorter and tattered at the bottom. _

_Kyoko reached her hand up to her ribbon again. _

_She knew where it came from._

_She felt guilty._

_She resolved that next time she could make a wish; she would make one for him instead of just her. _

Kyoko reached up to feel her ribbon again. It had done its job well for years. So often, she remembered the worst times at the end of their lives. She appreciated that; it made it that much easier to let them go. It was these happy or bittersweet memories that were the worst.

She sometimes wondered if her father would be upset that a witch like her would still wear it.

Kyoko laid some wildflowers down by the graves of her family, as she frequently did when she passed by. She looked at the lone destroyed grave. She wondered why Tsubasa was so curious about it.

_I guess when it's only one grave that's destroyed; it's natural to wonder why it was. _That, and Tsubasa had been an odd guy, in her opinion.

She didn't agree with anything he did, but she hoped he was alright, wherever he was.

Kyoko went inside the church. She had gone there for a very specific reason, after all.

Yuma was _pissed _at her.

Of course, Yuma had many reasons to be pissed at her right now. But attacking her first friend aside from Kyoko in the way that she had had definitely taken the cake.

Sayaka had pulled the first move to Kyoko's mind. But the fact of the matter was that before that fucking shield trick happened, Kyoko had been royally kicking her ass. And then Kyoko used her own magic trick on her to get her back…literally.

In front of Yuma.

Kyoko hoped that giving Yuma her tablet back would be a peace offering. She needed to explain _exactly _why they couldn't be involved with Sayaka. _Exactly _why Sayaka couldn't be in the picture at all. She would give Yuma what she wanted; she would tell her everything. She hoped then Yuma could understand why she had tried to do what she tried.

Yes, she knew that she should stick to her guns on disciplining her, as any good parental figure should; but Kyoko was great at some things and shitty at others; and Kyoko was a shitty mother.

_At least I'm still better than Yuma's actual mother was. _

Kyoko couldn't hold a candle next to her own mother though. She wasn't even going to try.

_I miss you, Mom. _

_I miss you, Momo. _

_I miss you, Dad. _

Kyoko opened the door to the basement. Her nostrils were assaulted with the odour of rot and mildew.

_Ugh, I need to clear this place out at some point. _

Kyoko walked over to the shelf that she had put the tablet on top of. She went on tip toes to reach it.

Nothing.

Kyoko's stomach dropped. _Oh fuck if I got her tablet stolen, she's going to kill me. _

Kyoko jumped to look.

_Aha! There it is!_

Kyoko remembered how her past self had pushed it too far back, and decided it would be a task for her future self to figure out.

_Goddammit. _

Kyoko looked around, trying to find something she could stand on. There was absolutely nothing that could work well as a stool.

She supposed the shelf itself could work as a ladder though.

She started to climb it as carefully as she could. The wooden platform had already protested and sunk a bit when she just stepped foot on it. Kyoko had gotten her feet onto the fourth shelf and was able to reach the beloved tablet easily.

_Got it!_

Then the platform complete caved beneath her, sinking the front of the shelving unit forward and off-balancing it so Kyoko was about to be crushed against another unit adjacent to it. All of the Easter and Lent decorations fell to the ground.

"Shit!"

Kyoko kicked her right foot out to keep the units from crashing together.

The added weight against the other unit made its platform cave beneath it too.

Thankfully, the units didn't fall very far. While the platforms looked like they were about six inches high, Kyoko would guess that the shelving units had only dropped about two.

That wasn't very much consolation though.

Kyoko was stuck.

_Fuck it all! Think, think, think!_

Kyoko winced. There was only one think she could do.

She materialized her spear, making that hold the two units apart. She jumped down, landing on her feet gracefully.

Her glimmering spear looked comically out of place against all of the rotting wood and dusty stored items. Kyoko shot an irritated look at the wooden platform that had caved.

Something looked wrong though. There was something black and shining underneath the wooden platforms. The floor was grey stone though, except for bits of carpet that had gone green underneath the platforms.

Now that Kyoko thought about it, she didn't even remember there ever having been carpets or wooden platforms in this room at all when she was younger.

_What's under there? _

She was careful when she maneuvered the shelving unit off of the platform. That unit wasn't particularly heavy for her now that all of the things it was holding were on the floor, but it was big and awkward.

She set it down and was about to start ripping up the wooden planks. When she pulled, it just opened. At the back, she saw that there were hinges. These weren't support platforms; they were storage bins.

There were four rows of full garbage bags underneath it.

"Fuck, is this what smelled so bad?" Kyoko muttered to herself. Why the hell did her father put garbage underneath a bunch of wooden platform storage containers?

She reached down to pick up one of the bags, but it was a lot heavier than she though it would be. It was like there were rocks in there. _What the fuck? _

She ripped open a bag. There were ten large Ziploc bags full of small white rocks. They looked familiar to her.

"What the?"

She opened a bag and took some of the stones out. She studied them. _Where have I seen these? _

She looked at them very closely, bringing them in front of her face. They just looked like rocks.

No, they looked like little white diamonds.

Her eyes opened in realization.

She remembered James proclaiming: "I came here looking for treasure!"

She remembered the woman Suki killed shrieking: "I need the treasure!"

"_Rumour has it he had made a lot extra in anticipation to sell it; there's hundreds of extra kilos of it hidden somewhere in the city."_

"_I heard it was somewhere in the old industrial district."_

Kyoko gawked at the stones in her hand; at the crystal methamphetamine, the White Diamonds in her hand.

She looked around the basement. There were garbage bags upon garbage bags of it.

She had hundreds of kilos of one of the highest quality drugs ever made in Kazamino hidden in the basement of the church. There must have been billions of yen worth of them in the room. She stared in wonder at the white pebbles in her hand.

"I found the treasure."

* * *

**AN:** At long last, we have another chapter! I'm so sorry for the wait everyone; I was really busy with my classes and work before. But here's another one out!

If you think about it, the average chapter on this site is like 10 pages and mine are 60, and I get one chapter out faster than they do six so on average I get chapters out as quickly as everyone else! (Okay, that's bad logic, I admit it).

For anyone who's confused about the White Diamonds, please go back to chapter 4. I know that that's a pretty far ways back in terms of word count, but they were mostly talking about it then. The part with the woman attacking Kyoko for the 'treasure' was in chapter 3.

Thank you very much everyone for sticking with this! I also want to thank those of you who review or send me messages to encourage me to keep writing; it really is what gets my butt in gear.

As always, thanks to the wonderful MagicalGay for being beta! They help me iron out plot holes and bad storytelling, so if you like this fic (which I really hope you do), thank them!

Until next time (which will hopefully be in less than three months this time),

-Don'tKillKenny


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Kyoko frantically shuffled through all of the bags strewn across the ground in front of her. Her mind was racing at a mile per minute.

_WhatdoIdoWhatdoIdoWhatdoIdoWhatdoIdoWhatdoIdo?_

She pulled her hands through her hair in stress as she flopped down on the ground. She was taking slow, deep breaths.

"This can work. I can make this work." She muttered to herself. _How though? _

Kurosawa…would Kurosawa pay her for this? There must have been tens, maybe even hundreds of billions of yen worth of diamonds in here. He had given up on searching for them years ago. This would essentially be the biggest unexpected cash inflow of all times for him.

The corner of her mouth curled in disgust. She knew what would happen.

He would never believe that she was handing everything over. He would either demand to see and own this place, or kill her for it.

Or Yuma…

No. Kurosawa could not find out about this.

Kyoko pulled out her last Tomi phone. It was almost dead. She really had no reason to use it, since both of them became Kurosawa's bitches. Really, it was odd that she had not simply turned it into an expensive paper weight that happened to have a wealth of incriminating evidence stored in it.

There was only one contact that would be helpful to her.

The phone rang, despite the mobile's protests of its low battery.

"I can't say I was expecting a call from you today, _Koko_." Kyoko could hear the American expatriate's annoyance through the phone. It pissed her off; she already felt like her stomach was going jump out of her throat, so his attitude was not what she needed right now.

"Talk to me like that one more time, and I'm going to rethink offering you this." She growled back.

"Offering me what? A one-way ticket to hell like you gave Miyamoto? No thanks."

Kyoko cringed internally. This was going to be harder than she thought. She took a deep breath and counted to ten.

"Just be sure to be at the club tonight. I'll give you a sample."

"I don't trust you for shit. What kind of dumbass do you take me for?"

_Oh for fuck's sakes. _

"Are you going to be in town much longer?"

He hung up.

"FUCK!" She screeched, throwing the phone against the wall. It shattered. She paced the destroyed basement anxiously, nearly tripping over a bag of overpriced rocks that could solve every single one of her fucking problems if she had a good place to actually _sell _them.

She wasn't stupid. She knew what Watanabe was planning, and it was the most sensible thing for him to do. Hell, he would have been even more sensible to have skipped town months ago instead of letting it get this far.

_These stupid fucking rocks had better be worth it. _

He wouldn't trust her. She needed to find a way to make him trust her within the next few hours. The only ways she knew of to gain someone's trust that fast was to either give them one of your darkest secrets or give them sex.

She stopped pacing. She pulled out her personal phone. She searched her contacts.

The phone rang. She picked up.

"Kyoko? Hi, you don't usually call…" Lady sounded hesitantly friendly.

"No, I don't. Remember that time I got your big, violent ex-client-turned-boyfriend to stop going to the club without Tomi knowing anything about your…'indiscretions' at work?"

"_Shit_, fine, what do you want?" She hissed, venom lacing her voice.

"Meet me by the abandoned train station in the old industrial district in two hours."

"You are so fucking sketchy."

* * *

Sayaka exhaustedly shuffled through all of the papers strewn across her desk in front of her. It was a mess of information on Megumi, her findings from the club, and autopsy results.

Ryo was putting her on the Megumi case with Ayumi for now. She was ordered to call Sango and ask for some extra shifts at the club to try to get more information.

Sayaka was surprised that Ryo hadn't ordered her to make a 'personal call' to Fusao. She appreciated not having to though. In fact, it almost felt like Ryo was starting to lay off of her a bit.

She wondered if his private conversations with Akemi had anything to do with that.

She decided to stop thinking about it and replayed the security footage of Megumi hanging himself.

It was a murder. She had decided that. But she had absolutely no way of proving it.

Kyubey lounged lazily on her desk, stretching its deceptively cute feline body. Sayaka wanted to strangle the little bastard, but she was in a public place and her mental health was under too much scrutiny as it was.

_"Have you found the missing piece yet, Detective Miki?"_ She could swear that thing was mocking her.

"Fuck off." She muttered under her breath.

Megumi kicked the chair out from underneath himself and convulsed for a moment before falling still, swinging gently back and forth in the dirty jail cell.

"Wait a minute."

She paused the footage. Something was off. She had always known something was off, but she felt like she was closer to finding out what it was.

"Something's not right." She repeated to herself. Kyubey swished its tail and rolled over closer to her so it could peer at the screen too.

_"Indeed. What do you see?" _

"I don't know. I see something not right but I can't see what." She clasped her hands in front of her face and leaned in to look closer at the screen. "What is it?"

"You're in the zone, eh Miki?" Eito playfully slapped her back. She jerked up and squeaked.

"Yeah I was in the zone, jerk, don't scare me like that!" She swatted at him with a beet red face. She wasn't sure if she hoped people thought she was talking to herself or not. He laughed.

"Sorry, sorry." He did not sound apologetic at all. "I'm going to get some takeout for dinner at the Thai place across the street. You want anything?"

"Is it already dinner time?" She glanced at the clock in the corner of her screen. It was past five. She would have to run home to get ready for the club within an hour. "Yeah, an order of Pad Thai would be great, thanks." She passed him a handful of notes.

Eito counted them and laughed hesitantly. "I think this might be a bit more than I need."

She glanced over and noticed that she had given him almost 50,000 yen.

"Shit, sorry! Those are the smallest bills I have now. Could you just give me the change?" She took back four of them. She noticed Kyubey looking at her. It was a despicable bastard, but she did promise to repay it for its help at the jail. "Oh, and could you get me some cake too?"

Eito nodded and left. She sighed as she looked back at her screen.

_"It appears that you perform better and accumulate more wealth as an erotic entertainer than a detective. Perhaps it would be in your best interest to change careers permanently? That way you could focus more on being a-"_ Sayaka slammed her fist on his head, trying to make it look like she was just frustrated with the footage in front of her.

She hunched over, combing her fingers through her hair in agitation again. She replayed the footage.

"What's wrong with this?"

Kyubey stood up, shaking back and forth as a wet dog would. _"Violence was not necessary. You could simply communicate that you disagree with me."_

_"You're lucky I don't try to do worse, you fucking prick." _She thought murderously.

_"Are you still upset about the relation between witches and magical girls?" _It tilted its head to the side.

_"Of course I'm still upset asshole! But this isn't the time or place to talk about that. I have work. Fuck off." _She dismissed him, fighting the urge to do some kind of rude hand gesture to emphasize her point. She settled for clicking her ballpoint pen rapidly instead.

_"I suppose I can leave if you would like. I know when I am not welcome. I would have thought you would appreciate my help in this though." _

She stopped clicking her pen.

_"If you see what's wrong with this, just fucking say it." _She growled mentally…and a bit verbally too.

_"This was overall very well done. I could see most humans dismissing this as a suicide. You are indeed very perceptive to see that it is not. It is all in the minute details." _

Sayaka crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. She pursed her lips. _The details, huh? _

Kyubey pushed one of the photos from the autopsy forward. It was Megumi's corpse, lying on his front the examiner's table. Sayaka could have gone her whole life without seeing his small, pale ass and have been perfectly content.

_"Do you see it yet?" _

She snarled a bit. _"Don't toy with me." _

Kyubey was tactful enough to not sigh mentally this time. It pushed another photo towards her. This one was a close up of the back of Megumi's neck. Compared to the pale alabaster skin of the rest of his body, the neck looked horrifically discoloured. It was almost black where the rope had been. The only things blacker on him were his hair and the snake-like tattoo that slithered up through bruises towards the base of his skull where it flared out.

She paused. Kyubey swished his tail.

She looked more closely at the tattoo. She looked back at the video footage and rewound it to when Megumi was getting up on the chair.

_"_Holy shit."

From the back, the man in the footage could have been Megumi's doppelganger. They looked virtually the same. They were the same height, build, and had the same haircut and colour.

The only obvious difference was that there was no tattoo coming out from the collar of the jail uniform shirt, and the top parts of the flare should have been clearly visible.

Sayaka grinned before she started laughing. This was it! This was proof. She yanked Kyubey to her chest and hugged it tightly. Its facial expression did not change.

_"Congratulations on seeing it! It is better to see it later rather than never." _

Sayaka decided to ignore the second part. She was about to get up to go into Ryo's office and explain that that footage wasn't of Megumi. This was clear proof that he was murdered! It just meant that the-

Sayaka paused, as a feeling of dread spread throughout her body.

_The footage was tampered with. How could the footage have been tampered with? _

She knew how. She didn't want to admit it, but she knew how.

This really was an inside job.

* * *

"Isn't there something, no, anything else I can do? I promised him I wouldn't bring anyone to his place!" Lady complained from the driver's seat of her black Lexus. She had to turn around to face Kyoko, who was sitting in the back seat with six large full duffel bags. She had gotten some weird looks at the luggage store when she bought them with a handful of large notes. She lied easily said she was going to New York with some friends.

They were parked in a dense forest area outside of town on the side of a highway. It didn't look like there was an actual house anywhere nearby.

"Then I won't go inside. Just give him this and I'll wait here." Kyoko passed her a heavy wrapped black package. She put about ten pounds in there. She figured that wouldn't be enough to be upset about losing it if he ran off with it, but it would make him suspect that she had more.

If he did try to run with it and take it to Kurosawa…

She knew what she would do. She knew what she would _have _to do.

_Fuck, I'm turning into one of them already and I haven't had this shit for a day. _

She shook her head of the thought. She wasn't doing this because she wanted to. She had to do it. It was the only way to save her father's church.

It was the only way to save the only thing her father had ever truly loved.

Lady disappeared into the woods as Kyoko looked over to the luggage she had brought. She wondered what it would be like if she actually _had _bought the bags to bring to New York. She smiled sadly. That would have been a happy moment.

Instead, it was being used to make one of the most damning contracts of her entire life.

The only contract worse that she had ever made was to become a magical girl. She paid the price for that every day.

She doubted this would be as bad. She was already a criminal and going to hell, if hell would even let her in. She would probably become a witch someday, and Kyoko spent too many nights wandering the church, wondering if those magical girls' souls were ever saved.

She doubted that too.

There were three firm knocks on the window next to her head. She snapped her head up to look.

James smiled pleasantly and waved at her.

She moved over and opened the door. He sat next to her and closed it. Lady looked at them from outside; the sunset illuminated her new blonde highlights nicely and softened her concerned features. She was looking more and more like a natural-born woman every day. James waved to her reassuringly. She nodded and walked into the woods to give them some privacy.

"I have to say, this was a very, very unexpected and pleasant surprise. What name would you prefer I call you by?"

"Now you ask?" She sneered. She hated fake people.

"Now you have something I want." His smile didn't falter.

"Kyoko's fine."

"Fantastic! So Kyoko. I'll cut to the chase, we're both busy people. Who gave you this? I'm just curious."

He was testing her. She didn't like it. She narrowed her eyes. She couldn't read him. What was the right answer?

"Does it really matter? All I'm here for is to see if you're interested in buying." She decided to be vague. No one could say she was going behind Kurosawa's back with an answer like that.

"Who does the money go to? I want to know who I'm working with. That's only good business practices, as I'm sure you know." His expression never changed. He reminded her so much of Kyubey she wanted to punch him.

"All I'm here for is to see if you're interested in buying." She spoke through clenched teeth. She stood her ground.

His smile looked strained. He reminded her less of Kyubey. He was human. She liked that.

It probably wasn't a good business practice to feel relieved that she was pissing off potential clients.

"Open the bags." He nodded towards the giant pile of heavy baggage behind her. Her frown deepened, but she obeyed.

She opened the first one to show all of the large Ziploc bags with stones inside. She saw him swallow in anticipation.

"Pass me one."

She obliged. He opened it and stuck his hand inside, moving it quickly as if searching for something. She squawked indignantly. He pulled his hand out quickly.

"Pass me the next one."

The spent the next twenty minutes like this. After he checked all of the bags in a duffel, he would search every pocket of the empty suitcase. His searches were quick but thorough.

He pulled open the door and stepped out. He motioned her to follow. She did.

"Spread your legs and hold out your arms."

"Excuse me?" She said calmly but dangerously, raising an eyebrow.

"Last check. I promise."

Her lip curled in disgust, but again she obeyed. She quickly patted her down, using the backs of his hands. He made her take her shoes off too. She had seen this kind of thing happen in airports in movies. She had never actually been in an airport, so she was never subjected to this herself. She didn't like it.

After he finished, he straightened his back. Even at full height, he only came up to Kyoko's nose. He carried himself like a much taller man though.

He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "No tricks. None at all. Again, I'm very pleasantly surprised." He smirked. His current demeanor reminded her much more of the impression she'd always had of him: amicable but kind of sleazy. "I only have one question. Is Kurosawa involved in this at all?"

"No." She answered firmly. For a split second, she worried that was the wrong thing to say.

The way his smirk turned into a smile quickly dispelled that thought.

"Getting out from under his thumb, I see. Good, good. So tell me; how much do you want for your…product?"

Kyoko stood tall, but inside she was feeling nervous. She honestly had no idea how much drugs were worth. She had briefly contemplated asking Sayaka, but decided as soon as the thought came into her head that that would be a _very _bad idea.

"300,000,000 yen for the six bags…and the sample I gave you."

"Done." He replied instantly, grabbing her hand and shaking it. "What's your banking info?"

_Fuck, I must have undercharged. _

"I need you to transfer it to a contractor. Here's his information." She pulled up Kermit the Builder's company's information. James started entering in information on his phone, before he squinted looking at her screen.

"Kyoko, I have to ask…is this a legitimate company?" He look at her dubiously.

"Yeah, of course it is!" She was defensive. What kind of shit did he think she was trying to pull?

"Is this guy your boyfriend or your husband or something?"

"What the fuck? Of course not!" She screamed in disbelief. Sure, Watanabe had never actually met Bob the Frog, so he could not picture how disgusting of an image that was.

His expression matched hers.

"Why the fuck are you using a legitimate company?! Oh fuck, Kurosawa really isn't involved with this at all. You have no idea what you're doing." He rubbed his face in vexation. Kyoko bristled.

"It's fine, I owe this guy money. And Hideki, so transfer 60,000,000 of that to him." She added as an afterthought. James looked at her in horror. She was pretty sure he felt as though he had just made a very big mistake making a deal with her.

It only lasted for a second though.

"Alright, alright. We can work with this. It's fine. I have a very good friend who I suggest you hire as your advisor. He's a real class act, alright? He'll help you manage your money and figure out the laundering. I don't want to get involved with anyone at risk of getting caught. It's always a disaster when someone gets arrested and I don't want that happening here. It's already bad enough with the Miyamotos."

Kyoko glanced to the side nervously. _Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. _

"I'll take the bags-"

"The hell you will!" She felt her magic activating on instinct. Her lance was about to materialize in her hand.

"Woah, woah, woah! Hang on, let me finish! I'll take the bags because it's better for you to avoid going back and forth with this much, alright? I have a good place to hide them. I was just going to show you this, okay? I've transferred all of the money to Hideki and put in the memo that this money was in trust to you. He's a real bastard if you owe him money, but he's great if you have a credit in your account. He won't take any more than whatever it is you owe him. For future reference though…never borrow money from the guy. I mean it, he's a_ real_ bastard. He might be nice to you the first time, but he gets you more and more afterwards."

Kyoko nodded. She didn't like knowing that much money that was technically hers was being held by someone like him. She felt one of her phones buzz, which she assumed was a message from him.

"Do you mind if I pass on your info to this advisor? He's great at what he does. You have my personal guarantee."

She discretely swallowed anxiously but nodded. She wished she knew somebody, _anybody _else who could have helped her here.

She actually wished the cunt Suki was here. Kyoko had to admit, she had started to trust her.

James tapped away on his cellphone before looking up and smiling at her in his trademark overly friendly way.

"I'll take the product. Naomi will drive you to the club. Just act natural."

Kyoko almost asked who the fuck Naomi was before remembering that was Lady's legal name. Kyoko nodded.

"Want help carrying them?" She asked, easily picking up four duffel bags, holding two on each shoulder. She would have taken all six, but they were too big to hold comfortably. They were packed so full the straps would tear off if they were held that well.

"Er, yeah sure." James said as he went to pick one up. He tried to swing it on to his shoulder as Kyoko had easily done, but comically knocked himself over on the ground instead. Kyoko would have laughed had she not just made a massive drug deal with him. "Holy fuck, you're strong…" He muttered in embarrassment before putting the bag on his shoulder much more carefully.

Lady took the other bag, carefully picking it up as Watanabe had.

"I'm not sure if this will make you feel better about anything Kyoko, but you don't have to worry about me giving you any bad advice. I say this with all of the kindness and admiration in my heart, but you fucking terrify me."

Kyoko let out a bark of laughter as they continued walking through the forest to wherever his base was.

* * *

"Isn't there something, no, anything else it could be?" Ayumi asked, hunching over Sayaka's chair to look at the video. It was undeniable though. That wasn't Megumi and someone had to have tampered with the evidence to switch it.

"What else _could _it be? Someone had to have messed with it! And this had to have been carefully planned too; the footage fit together seamlessly." After Sayaka watched the video a few more times, she noticed other little things that were wrong too.

The floor in the video had looked dull and almost dirty or sticky. The floor in the actual cell was meticulous and shining.

The socks worn by the man in the video had a dark grey stripe on them. Megumi's were a solid black.

There was no doubt about it. This wasn't the video of Megumi's death.

Kyubey purred in content under Sayaka's desk. She had given him the cake and some of the Pad Thai. Sayaka wondered if she would have figured it out on her own. She liked to think that she would have.

She decided not to mull on the topic any further when she looked at the time on her phone.

"Shit, I need to get ready to go to the club." She was exhausted. She'd had an average of three hours of sleep a night over the last week. She had essentially been at work without breaks since eight a.m. and was going to be going straight through until three a.m. _At least the overtime is great. _"Could you write up a report on this and hand it in to Ryo before morning?"

"Don't you want to do it, _Detective _Miki?" She said spitefully. Sayaka turned to her in shock.

"Woah, woah, woah! Where's that coming from?" It hadn't been Ayumi's words that got to her; her _tone _was a whole other matter.

"I just would have thought a report on something like this would be a _detective's _job, _not _an officer's. Just saying. If you get the title, you should do the work."

"Are you seriously implying that I don't work hard enough? Do you have any idea how much overtime I've been building up at that fucking club?" Sayaka was incredulous. She had been working her _ass _off, both at work and as a magical girl. She didn't have any fucking time to herself anymore. Any reasonable person would say that not only was she good, but she was _amazing _at her job. At least in terms of the results she got; her methods were far from orthodox, but they worked.

"Never mind. Forget I said anything. I'll do the report tonight."

"No, I take that back. You're right, I should be the one doing it. I'm the one that caught it, so I should do the work for it." Sayaka realized immediately that her last sentence wasn't necessary, but said nothing to take it back. Ayumi looked irked, but nodded.

"Good night, Sayaka. The Captain's counting on you for more information on Megumi and Miyamoto. Don't freak out on us this time." Ayumi walked away as she was talking. Sayaka wouldn't have been able to hear the last part if she didn't have her magically enhanced hearing.

_Well, that went well. Ah, fuck! Now I have to do a report after the club! _

She rubbed her temples in frustration as she walked out of the station, taking the roundabout way home. She quickly got ready.

Rin looked like hell tonight.

Sayaka sighed and ran out. She would have to run; she might miss the train and be late. As it was, she was barely going to make it and wouldn't be able to do much to get ready. Hopefully, no one would be an asshole about it.

She dozed very lightly on the train. Her eyes snapped awake at her stop. She sprinted off and ran into the shady side door of the club that led to the changing room. It was bustling and all of the good outfits had been taken. She cringed as she picked up the last two outfits in her size: a translucent lavender gown that fit her persona, but _really _made it look like she was ready to go to bed and sleep, or a scant black faux leather…thing? Sayaka wasn't even sure how to put it on. It just looked like a bunch of leather straps that were somehow held together.

But she could wear darker makeup with it, which could help disguise the fact that she was so tired. After a few moments of fumbling, she somewhat figured out what she was supposed to do. Her nipples were dangerously close to hanging out, and she probably only had about five or ten percent of her actual body covered….if that.

She sighed and put on a very dark smoky eye. It officially looked like she was going for a sex slave look.

She was the last one in the change room by the time she was done. She sped out, which was not easy to do in six inch heels. She didn't even check where she was booked; she just hoped she was supposed to be in Room B.

All of the usuals were there, including Hideki and Geisha, who shot her a look Sayaka couldn't decipher.

Kyoko wasn't though.

"Where's Koko? Wasn't she supposed to be on tonight?" She asked as innocently as she could. It did not fit with her outfit at all.

"She's sick. She might come in later but I doubt it. She was in pretty rough shape. Too bad for her though! You look hot!" Lady winked.

Sayaka was skeptical. _Do magical girls even get sick? _

She tried her best not to let it show and smiled. She cuddled next to Fusao. She closed her eyes for a second, trying to enjoy a moment of serenity next to his body heat before she would have to face where she was.

She felt a stern jab to her side.

"What the fuck!" She squealed. She looked incredulously at the perpetrator: Akemi.

"You feel asleep. You were drooling." She pointed to where there was, in fact, a little pool of drool on Fusao's shoulder. He smiled kindly and didn't seem to mind.

"Shit, I am so sorry!" She hurriedly tried to wipe it away. James laughed.

"Precious! Such language!"

Sayaka blushed and looked away, both out of embarrassment and trying to regain her stage composure. She ignored the look Geisha shot her way.

The rest of the night passed uneventfully. She got groped more than she should have been. Kyoko never showed up. Sayaka even asked Kyubey at one point if Kyoko was around, but he only gave some vague bullshit answer that Sayaka couldn't figure out.

Nobody said a word about Megumi or Miyamoto, and there was no way Sayaka was going to be the one to breach the topic.

Three a.m. finally came and she wanted to collapse in bed. She got changed into her street clothes and went outside to begin what she imagined would feel like a long trek home then back to the office.

At least that had been her plan before she felt an electric shock pulse through her, sending adrenaline pumping through her veins at the increasingly familiar, telltale sign of an impending battle.

_Fuck, a witch! _

* * *

Kyoko entered Tomi's office hesitantly, keenly aware of her pounding heart. She had been in the process of doing her hair in the dressing room when Sango told her Tomi wanted to see her.

She was also keenly aware of the fact that Tomi and Kurosawa were cousins, and she was going behind Kurosawa's back on a _very _significant deal. _Did he find out? Is he going to try to turn me in? _

She felt her magic emanating from her ring. She had that. She always had that, and that would keep her and Yuma safe and alive. _Right? _

"Close the door please." Tomi smiled genially. She did as ordered. She didn't like this at all.

"Would you care for a drink? I know you're not a fan of alcohol, but I would be happy to get you a virgin of some sort."

"Nah, I'm good thanks. What's up?" She crossed her arms and legs, trying to look cool and casual.

"I've heard from a good mutual friend of ours that you are looking at entering the industry on your own."

Her heart skipped a beat. _Fuck! _

"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not. What's it to ya?" She pulled some pocky out of her pocket and started gnawing on it. She needed something to channel her emotions. It didn't really feel like it was working.

"I was wondering if you needed an advisor is all. I am one of the best in all of Japan. I know how to make things look legal." He smiled again. "And I'd way rather have you as a client than my cousin. You're usually reasonable."

She stopped gnawing on the pocky, letting it hang out of her mouth dumbly.

"You gotta realize I'm not crazy about working with you, after that whole 60-40 thing." She looked thoroughly unimpressed. Tomi laughed.

"That's just how the business works! It's nothing personal. This would be a completely different arrangement anyways. You wouldn't be a staff. You'd be a client."

"So what do you get out of this, exactly?" She didn't trust him for a second. She barely trusted him as her employer, even though they had had a generally good relationship for the past five years before recent revelations came to light.

"I get a cut, of course. And I'll give you a deal, because we would have a very low-risk way of doing things that would actually be equally beneficial for me. Give me ten percent of all of the sales you make. I'll handle your money laundering and legal matters. You do the rest. Sounds simple, right?"

She raised an eyebrow skeptically. She had learned not to trust anyone in this "industry" a long time ago.

Tomi sighed.

"I have a strategy in mind, but I want to check something with you first. I heard you borrowed money from Hideki. Is that true?"

She kept a stone façade and said nothing. She started chewing on the pocky again.

"So you did. Hideki told me it was for some sort of building thing. Can you tell me more about that? I need to know what this major project you have going on is."

Kyoko chewed the sweet in her mouth obnoxiously loud before she tossed another one in her. She didn't want to tell him, but who was she kidding? If this was going to look even semi-legal, he would have to know.

"The City threatened to tear my father's church down. I need a lot of money to repair the place. That's what I'm doing this for."

"Your father's – wait, you mean the cult church in the Old Industrial District?" He looked at her in disbelief. He buried his head in his hands. "You've got to be _fucking_ kidding me, Ophelia." He mumbled.

"That's what I'm doing, and if you don't want to be a part of that then I'll just find someone else. I bet there's a lot of smart guys out there who would want that ten percent." She challenged, frustrated and embarrassed.

"No, no, it's fine. I think there are…better investments to make with that money, but if that's what you want, we can make it work. For something like that, we can set it up as a non-profit and register it as a cultural heritage site. I have a tourism company, so I'll transfer the money through there and set the payments up as donations. That sound good?"

Kyoko blinked dumbly again. "Uh, yeah. Can you do the paperwork?" She hated to admit it, she doubted she would even understand any of the forms. She didn't want to blame her low level of education, but it probably wouldn't help her much on that front.

"Of course. That's part of the ten percent. I have to ask: how much more do you have? How much did you already sell to James?"

"Not a lot. There's plenty more."

"Great. Hide it. That's what you're best at. Also, for the record you could have charged almost double what you did. This is a premium product that everyone thinks has disappeared. What we're going to do is we're only going to release a little bit at a time, alright? We want everyone to keep thinking it's elusive. We can all charge more that way. Make sense?"

Kyoko nodded. She understood that.

"Good. If you have as much as there's rumoured to be, you're going to have a lot left over even after your Church is rebuilt. Here's where things are going to get fun. We need to launder the money to you in a way that won't raise suspicion. The best way to do that is by having your own legitimate business, especially if it makes sense for you to own it." He passed her a massive black binder full of documents. The first page looked like the beginning of a contract between Tomi and herself.

She raised an eyebrow and looked at him. He smiled.

"I've wanted to get rid of this fucking place for a long time now. Just initial every page and sign on the twentieth one. Then I'll officially congratulate you on becoming the new owner of Tomi's…or if you would prefer, Kyo's Gentlemen's Club."

* * *

Sayaka entered the witch's labyrinth hesitantly, keenly aware of her pounding heart. She held her shield close to her. It felt weird wearing her wig with her magical girl armour, but she had nowhere to put it. She had such a bad feeling about this.

She'd been afraid of clowns for years. It looked like she was in a school that was dark and outrageously over decorated as a circus, with dull coloured bouncy castles that were collapsing on themselves, tight ropes, stalls, multicolored flashing lights and everything. The familiars were miniature anthropomorphic animals like elephants, tigers, lions, and seals dressed in ridiculous clown costumes. They performed a variety of acts around her like juggling, cartwheels, and firing themselves out of cannons. Speaking of which…

"Shit!" She screamed as she jumped out of the way to avoid a pink rhinoceros.

The familiars sounded like a bunch of kids laughing at the victim of a prank they had played. They ignored her for the most part in favour of performing their various spectacles to the rhythm of low, distorted circus music.

She ran through them, her senses in overdrive. The labyrinth smelled sickly sweet; like cotton candy mixed with rotten fruits. The music was disturbing, to say the least. There were way too many things going on around her, distracting her at every second.

She almost missed it when the ground started caving beneath her feet.

"FUCK!" She screamed, morphing her sword to help her grab on to a tight rope above her. She swung herself up on to it.

The entire ground had collapsed beneath her. The familiars kept laughing as some fell down while others ran up the walls.

She swallowed nervously as she ran along the tightrope. She was surprisingly well-balanced. It must have been an effect of her magic.

She jumped along tightropes and cannons, doing her best to avoid the familiars. She had to bounce a flying seal off of her shield, which was a big mistake. The familiars must have thought it looked like fun, because they were all targeting her shield now, squealing in laughter.

_This is such a dumb waste of magic…I wonder if I should call Yuma? _

She dismissed the thought and kept running towards the middle of the labyrinth. She figured she should wait at least three days before trying to make contact after their last encounter. Kyoko was probably watching her like a hawk. _Maybe that was why she was 'sick'? _

She heard a very human scream from up ahead. Her stomach dropped.

She didn't have any time to call Yuma.

Sayaka sprinted, slashing her way through familiars to get to the middle. She vaguely noticed the posters on the wall, advertising the main act. She couldn't read the runes it was written in though, but she recognized a bunch of broken hearts and what looked like emoticons that were laughing so hard, they were crying. The emoticons were literally shaking on the poster.

She burst through the door to find the center of the labyrinth. It looked like a traditional circus staging area, but there were student's desks instead of audience chairs surrounding the middle. They were all empty.

In the middle, the only places to stand were on large, brightly coloured target boards spinning rapidly on long, thin rulers that stuck out of an abyss. There were monkey familiars were disproportionately large puckered red lips swinging around on trapezes.

Sayaka could recognize the witch right away. It was a monkey as well, but larger than the others and ridiculously made up. It looked like it had badly smudged mascara and bright blue eyeshadow which clashed horribly with its fluorescent pink cheeks. It was wearing a very gaudy frilly pink princess dress and was dancing much more quickly and less gracefully than its familiars. She looked like she was trying too hard to impress somebody.

Sayaka noticed two spinning boards in particular, each on opposite sides of the pit. They both had humans strapped onto them.

One of them was a middle-aged man with thick-rimmed glasses and a checkered sweater vest. He looked like he could have worked in IT or a library or something. Sayaka imagined that if he had been conscious and not stuck on a spinning plate, he would have had a kind face. It was amazing he hadn't been thrown off of it.

The other had a burly young man in a leather jacket and adorned with tattoos. His head was shaved on one side and had bright pink hair on the other. He looked like the kind of guy she would have loved to party with a few years ago. He was conscious and screaming for help.

She herself was using her magic to hover in the air, standing on a cerulean platform of light. She had two options. She could try to kill the witch as quickly as possible or get the humans out first.

The man with the tattoos puked. Sayaka cringed. The librarian's target board seemed to lose momentum temporarily, leading it to tilt precariously to one side.

She wouldn't be able to kill the witch fast enough and she would have to use too much magic to place and protect the men in hovering barriers. She had trouble keeping those up for extended periods and was already drained coming in.

She rushed down to unstrap the unconscious man. She was ready to jump over to the increasingly disoriented man across the way.

The witch started making sounds. She danced harder, flailing her arms completely out of sync with the familiars and music. She sounded like she was trying badly to pretend that she was laughing when she was really crying.

"What did the world do to you?" Sayaka asked quietly with pity. She imagined a lonely young gawky girl being made a fool of. She probably just wanted friends…

Two laughing monkeys on trapezes swung in from either side of the tattooed man. One grabbed his arms while the other grabbed his legs. The target board disintegrated beneath him, leaving him to only being held up by the apes.

The trapezes swung in opposite directions. The man tried to scream but didn't have the chance.

"NO!" Sayaka cried out just as the man was ripped apart in two.

She breathed heavily, about to vomit as she saw the pieces of his guts and body be dropped into the void beneath them. The familiars laughed. The witch cried and danced more wildly. Sayaka felt tears stinging her eyes and clouding her vision.

She fucked up.

* * *

Kyoko walked onto the street at around four a.m. She had been looking forward to sleep, but sensed a witch nearby. She had noticed it earlier, but couldn't leave easily in the middle of the meeting. It took forever for her to fully understand everything in the damn binder.

She was surprised to find out that Tomi's club didn't make money. Hell, it lost it; and a lot of it. The only reason it was staying afloat was because of all of the money Tomi laundered through it.

Part of Kyoko was excited to try to change that. She'd had ideas about things they could do better for ages.

The witch was still alive. She walked over to it leisurely. She wasn't in much of a rush. Most of the younger magical girls would have phoned it in by now. It was a school night, after all.

She was unimpressed when the saw that the entrance to the labyrinth was moving. The witch wasn't alone. Kyoko remembered that there was another magical girl in this area that would probably still be awake right now.

"Fucking bitch." Kyoko sneered, transforming and ready to kick the cop's ass. This should have been _her _witch.

The entrance to the labyrinth broke. Sayaka must have killed it.

"Fuck!" Kyoko cursed loudly. She wondered if she could beat Sayaka up and steal the grief seed without Yuma finding out. She was pretty sure that wouldn't go over well if she found out. Kyoko growled with anger and started to walk away. "You're fucking lucky Yuma likes you, rookie."

Kyoko paused when she heard Sayaka emerge, bawling behind her. Kyoko turned around with a raised eyebrow.

_Wow, she looks like shit. _

Sayaka's wig was skewed and her attire was covered in vomit; whether it was hers or from the man she was carrying, she didn't know nor cared. Sayaka collapsed to the ground, the man being dropped harshly and unceremoniously beside her. Kyoko doubted Sayaka even noticed her.

Kyoko saw the grief seed clutched tightly in her hand.

"Why…" Sayaka muttered pathetically. Kyoko tilted her head to the side to try to listen more closely.

"Why didn't you _help_?!" Sayaka whipped her head up, officially knocking the wig off. She shot a vicious, accusatory glare at Kyoko that was accentuated by the fake green lenses she wore. "WHY DIDN'T YOU HELP? WHY DIDN'T YOU HELP? WHY DIDN'T YOU FUCKING HELP ME?!" She screamed manically.

Kyoko pulled back in shock. Sayaka held her glare, eyes read and tears streaming down her face. Her expression melted into despair. Sayaka keeled over again, mewling like a dying cat.

"We could have saved them both. We could have saved him too...I could have saved him too. It's my fault. I hesitated. It's all my fault." Sayaka sobbed into the ground.

Kyoko exhaled, releasing the tense posture she didn't even know she had been holding. She looked down at her mess of a nemesis. Kyoko vividly remembered the first civilian she couldn't save; it was a little boy who was killed by a steel motorcycle witch. She still had nightmares about it, and they were more vivid than any of the dreams she had about any others she failed. She reached out to her, about to offer her hand. Kyoko blinked and pulled it back.

"Hurry up and use your grief seed before I steal it." She said without malice in her voice. She walked away, going to look for another witch.

* * *

Sayaka was about to walk onto the street at around seven a.m. She called an ambulance for the man and stumbled home. She basically threw the wig on the ground and took her contacts out. She stumbled to the station to finish the damn report.

_Why does that report even matter? That's nothing compared to witches. The witches are way worse. They kill way more people. _

She was about to submit the report to Ryo's mailbox when she noticed another one, titled "Megumi File Progress" already in there. Sayaka pulled it out and looked at it. It was from Ayumi.

Sayaka rolled her eyes. She had just wasted two hours of time that she could have been using to find more witches, and maybe even familiars.

_If I hunt too many familiars though…we'll become witches too. We'll kill people too. _

She looked at the ground hopelessly, cursing herself for her stupidity. She was about to put the memo back when she noticed something.

'_I noticed the details in the footage of Megumi's supposed suicide did not match the footage from when he was alive.' _

She read through the page.

Ayumi hadn't mentioned Sayaka's name anywhere.

Ayumi was taking all of the credit.

Sayaka looked at the single page in her hands with boredom. It was poorly done. _What a dumb bitch. _

This really didn't matter. This was nothing compared to how many innocent people, like that man in the leather jacket were murdered daily by witches. This was nothing compared to how many young girls were tricked into contracting and turned into said witches.

This was nothing.

Sayaka sighed, but she couldn't put it back.

The gross reality was that Sayaka's report was better. Sayaka had listed ten changed details and put freeze frames of them side by side. Ayumi only mentioned the tattoo and didn't put images in. It was as if she was in a rush to get somewhere. Hell, Ayumi's report was one page while Sayaka's was almost fifteen.

"What the hell were you thinking, Ayumi?" Sayaka muttered.

Sayaka put hers in and took Ayumi's out. It would have just been an embarrassment to Ayumi if hers was in there next to Sayaka's. Sayaka's report mentioned both of their names anyways. She shredded Ayumi's report and walked out of the station, shaking her head in exhaustion at the meaningless bullshit office drama.

She felt like a zombie walking home. She collapsed in her bed but she couldn't sleep.

She wondered who that man was. What kind of person was he? Did he have a family? What did he do for a living?

She wasn't sure if she would rather he be a hopeless addict like she had been or not. If a witch had gotten her when she was young, the world wouldn't have missed her.

_I should want a hit right now. Or a drink. Or something. _

She cried again. Something felt wrong. She almost felt numb, or empty. It was great that she wasn't tempted to take anything, but it made no sense to her. She felt like she should want something. Almost in the way if you go three days with a flu and without eating but still don't feel hungry, you should still eat something.

_I'm such a sick freak. _

She cried herself to sleep and slept right through her work phone's frantic ringing from eight am to ten.

* * *

"Where were you, Kyoko? This is late, even for you." Yuma muttered sleepily as Kyoko settled into the bed. Kyoko wasn't sure what to say. She just lay on her back, staring upwards.

"Sorry. I was having a conversation with Sayaka that went late." _Kind of true. _

Yuma blinked and woke up more, turning to face her.

"What did you do?" She asked warningly, already unimpressed. Kyoko sighed. She didn't blame Yuma for assuming their conversation must have gone bad. Or for assuming that it would have been Kyoko's fault.

"She lost her first civilian today. I was busy at work when she was fighting a witch and I guess she couldn't save him on her own." Kyoko kept her eyes fixed on the ceiling.

"Oh." Yuma said quietly, going back under the covers. Kyoko knew that Yuma still dreamed of her first; a young pink-haired girl named Madoka, singled out and targeted by the bitch Oriko a week after Yuma contracted. Technically, there had been dozens, maybe even hundreds of students and teachers killed that day, but she was the first one Yuma actually saw.

Kyoko's brows furrowed as she remembered something.

"Weird question: was Sayaka a middle schooler at Mitakihara when-"

"Yeah, she was. What made you think of that?"

"I was just remembering the pink haired girl, your first one. She had a blue-haired friend who was crying when she was killed. I just realized that was-"

"That _was _Sayaka." Yuma said with wide eyes, joining Kyoko in staring at the ceiling. "Wow, I never made that connection. I really should have before. She even said Madoka's name…" She mumbled, trailing off in thought.

Kyoko crossed her arms in front of her chest. The fucking cop, who was literally a knight in shining armour lost her first civilian today. Kyoko wondered how much the Middle School attack had fucked her up too. A lot of things made a lot more sense to her. _Maybe that's why Kyubey contracted her, even though she's so old? She'd had experience with witches before…_

"You should call her tomorrow." Kyoko stated. "It's a school day though, so you should get some more rest. Good-"

Kyoko was cut off, convulsing. She couldn't breathe. She felt a strike of cold piercing her and spreading through her veins. She knew what this was. She pulled out her soul gem. It was going dark, fast.

She was having another magic attack.

"Kyoko!" Yuma panicked, grabbing the stack of grief seeds they'd been accumulating for Yuma's trip. Yuma shoved three of them at her soul gem. Thankfully, it only needed two.

Both were panting, breathing heavily.

"Son of a _bitch_, I'd hoped those things had gone away." Kyoko cursed laboriously, clutching her soul gem to her chest. Yuma started to cry.

"I'm supposed to go next week and you're still having them Kyo. How can I leave you alone? You can't make me go. Please don't make me go. I want to stay with you. I want to be here for you." She pleaded. Kyoko sneered, mostly at herself.

"You're going, and I'll be waiting right here for you when you get back, okay? And I can't wait to hear all of your crazy stories. Hey, hey, hey, come on now." She struggled and got up. She wiped away Yuma's tears. Yuma buried herself into Kyoko's chest, shaking. Kyoko lay them back down on the bed, soothingly combing her fingers through Yuma's hairs until her sobs subsided and she fell into an uneasy slumber. Kyoko kept staring at the ceiling. She didn't sleep that night. She couldn't figure out what was wrong with her.

She would never know that in all of the drama, Yuma completely forgot about calling Sayaka.

* * *

"Where the _fuck _were you, Miki? I've been trying to get a hold of you since eight! We were supposed to have a meeting this morning!" Ryo furiously slammed some files on his desk. Sayaka looked at the ground despondently.

If she thought she looked like shit yesterday, today she looked shit that had been eaten by a dog and then shit out again.

"Sorry Captain. This won't happen again." She sat down in a chair next to Ayumi's. Ayumi didn't say anything and refused to look at Sayaka.

Sayaka wished her life could be that simple too; so simple that something like who got the credit for a report was a big fucking deal.

She envied her.

"I want to give you a break on this, because I know we've been working you into the ground Miki, but I want to figure out what the fuck is going on. I got two reports about the Megumi case and I need you two to get your _shit _together! Come on! We can't make any mistakes right now, especially if you're accusing someone inside of tampering with evidence like this!" He yelled, a sort of growl sneaking into his voice at the end. Sayaka and Ayumi glanced at each other confused.

"I'm sorry, but what?" Sayaka asked. She had shredded Ayumi's. Only hers was in there.

"I got two reports. One of them was an email of a one-page piece of shit with only one bit of real information on it. The other was actually good and in my mailbox, but not fucking emailed to me. It really needs to be edited to make it more 'politically correct' because you can't just call shit out in things like this. Either way, I want you to figure it out. Which report is it?"

"The good report sir. The one in the mailbox. I apologize for the confusion." Sayaka said on auto-pilot. Through heavy eyes, she looked over at Ayumi who looked ghostly pale. She was fidgeting. Sayaka knew that kind of look all too well.

Sayaka sighed. She might as well be nice.

"I made a one-page report and sent it to Ayu- err, Officer Himura to get started. It was never supposed to be the one sent to you. I had to run out to go to the club. She did the fifteen page report with more details and analysis. She must have accidentally emailed you the wrong one. We apologize for the confusion." Sayaka bowed.

Everyone was quiet for a few moments. Ayumi gaped like a fish, opening and closing her mouth a few times but said nothing. Ryo just narrowed his eyes at Sayaka, inspecting her closely. He sighed and relented.

"Himura, email me the right report _right now_. Good work you two. Miki, I wanted to talk to you about Miyamoto but you look like death. Take the rest of the morning off and be in at one on the dot."

"Yes Captain." She bowed as she got up.

"Miki, don't get up. I'm not done with you. Himura, email me the report immediately. It is way too accusatory so I need to edit it. I don't like it either, but political correctness is a fucker we need to play nice with."

Ayumi nodded and dismissed herself, closing the door behind her. Ryo sighed and turned to face Sayaka.

"Next time, you don't need to cover for her. I've seen reports from both of you. She doesn't think shit out and you don't know how to tone yourself down and play nice. It's easy to tell which of you is which. And for fuck's sakes, she was the only one with her name on the piece of shit. I'm not an idiot. _Don't lie to me again. _Now you can go." With a wave of his arm, he dismissed her. She got up and left. Ayumi was standing awkwardly to the side, the blush on her face clashing terribly with her magenta hair.

"Uh...hi."

Sayaka glanced at her, not sure how to play this. With a deep exhale, she decided to keep going to casual route.

"I'll email you the report right now."

"Yeah…thanks." She nodded awkwardly. Sayaka turned on her computer and frowned at the mass amount of emails she had. _I need to go through these sometime… _She thought with no real intention of doing anything about it. She sent the file off and put the computer on standby.

Sayaka was ready to crash at her place. She felt her personal phone buzz.

"_I'm sorry." _From Ayumi. Sayaka ignored it.

Then her work phone rang.

_Akemi_.

"Fuck." She muttered. "Hello?"

"Are you working right now, Miki?"

"No, I was given the morning off to sleep…" She trailed off, hoping that would be enough.

"Oh. I see. I apologize for disturbing you. Will you be working this afternoon?"

"Yes." She mumbled. She wanted the whole day off, but knew she couldn't get that.

"Excellent. I will meet you at your office. Enjoy your nap." She hung up. Sayaka threw the phone across the bed and fell asleep.

* * *

It was amazing what a few well-placed bribes could get you, as Kyoko quickly learned. The city was going to put a rush on making the Church a cultural heritage tourist site thingy or whatever. She didn't completely understand what that meant. All she knew was that it would be way harder for the city to ever try to tear it down.

The money was all sent over to some non-profit account, which then paid the contractor. Kyoko was amazed by how easy it all was. It had seemed like an impossible task before, but she was making it work!

Which led to her new problem…she was making it work.

Which meant the hiding place for the diamonds wasn't going to be very hidden for very long.

"Son of a bitch, son of a bitch, son of a _fucking _bitch!" She grumbled to herself as she paced the church. She needed to think of somewhere else to put it, and fast.

She had to get it out of the church, but she couldn't take them too far. She risked somebody noticing her. She also couldn't keep them _in _the damn church, because the contractor was going to start tearing shit up really soon.

She walked up and down the aisles. Her father used to do this when he was thinking. He walked a lot more slowly, whereas she was speed walking and nearly destroying the things that were in her wake; hence the destruction in the church that had gotten her into this mess.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…"

She stopped and took a deep breathe in. She held it. Then she exhaled. She needed a sign or something.

_There's got to be something. _

After years of abuse, the door leading to the back grounds outside finally fell off its hinges, landing with a great echoing thud. She turned around and looked at the spring light that was cascading inside.

She looked at the cemetery just outside.

_That could work_.

* * *

It was amazing what a few well-placed hours of sleep could do for a person, Sayaka quickly learned. She felt fresh as a daisy when she woke up at half past noon.

She quickly had a shower and got dressed. She threw on her boots and coat, ready to go to meetings.

She was about to grab a scarf…the same scarf Ayumi had given her a few days ago to cover her neck. _I should give that back to her._

She noticed the scarf was the same colour as the man's hair.

The man she let die.

Her level of energy plummeted as she held the scarf in her fingers. She felt like she had almost forgotten that it had happened. The same thing happened after the attack on Mitakihara Middle School; the next day, she had gotten ready for school as usual before seeing the blood on her uniform and remembering there was nothing to go back to. She felt her shoulders start to shake as her throat tightened. _Fuck, don't do this now!_

She rubbed at her eyes and shoved the scarf in her pocket, out of sight. She didn't want to look at it and she didn't want to keep it in her apartment.

She rushed outside and made it to work a minute before one.

"Please, you have to help us. This isn't normal for him." Sayaka heard as she walked past the front desk. There was a young man with dyed platinum blonde hair and more piercings than she had ever seen on a human standing in front of a stoic receptionist, who had heard the same plea for help time and time before.

"I'm sorry sir, but you will have to wait until an officer is available to take your partner's details." The receptionist sounded like she had been trying to explain this to the man for a very long time. The man turned around exasperated and set his eyes on Sayaka.

"Excuse me! Ma'am! Do you work here?" He asked her, eyes full of hope. Sayaka glanced at him with dull eyes. She didn't have a lot of time before her meeting and didn't feel like being there anyways.

"Yes sir, I'm a detective. I'm very sorry, but I have to-"

"That's great, you're exactly who I need to talk to! Please, I just need a minute. My life partner has gone missing. His name is Kita Haru. He's twenty-eight years old. He runs a youth centre for troubled teens in the Old Industrial District. He's an amazing artist and volunteers at the half-way house, teaching recently released inmates how to manage their finances and work on their resumes. He was out yesterday buying art supplies for the centre but he never came home. He never does this. Please, you have to help me find him." The man desperately held up a photograph of a young man.

He held up the photograph of _the _young man.

Her throat felt constricted again.

"Uh, I-"

"Detective Miki, the Captain needs to see you immediately." Eito said from the door that led to the staff area. Sayaka looked over to him, nodding mutely.

"Uh, Ei-Officer Gora, could you take this gentleman's questions? It's an urgent matter." She tried to swallow the lump in her throat but couldn't. Eito looked uncertain, but nodded.

"Thank you, thank you so much!" The man bowed gratefully to her, relieved that someone was taking him seriously now. Sayaka nodded mutely and walked away. If only he knew that this was a lost cause.

_I am so, so sorry…_

She rushed to Ryo's office and closed the door. Ryo did not look pleased.

"You're late, Miki."

She looked at the clock on the wall. It was three minutes past one.

"I apologize sir. I got stopped by a distressed man whose partner has gone missing."

Ryo sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"You're a good person Miki, but you can't save the whole world. One thing at a time. Right now, we're focusing on Megumi. You're completely right about the tampered evidence, and we brought it to the Chief. There's going to be a real shit storm with this because now the c-word is being mentioned."

"The c-word?" _What does this have to do with cancer?_

"Corruption."

"Oh. That c-word."

Ryo raised an eyebrow at her. "Now Miki, I have our…_good _friends with the feds bugging me to let you work with them on the Miyamoto case. I don't want to let you go to that one just yet. They want to interview Miyamoto or Sueda or whoever the fuck she is in prison. She was already sentenced, but we're hoping she'll decide to try to be acquitted in exchange for a testimony against Kurosawa once she finds out her brother…guy thing is dead. She might be more willing to talk then."

Sayaka nodded. It made sense. "Are you sure I should have anything to do with that? What if she makes the connection between me and Precious?"

"You and who?"

Sayaka winced. He didn't know about the stage name. "Yamasaki."

"Ah…well see, that's the thing. We think she might have asked to speak to you a few times. We're not sure though."

"How can you not be sure?"

"She asked to speak to 'Sapphire'."

Sayaka cringed again. "Yeah…she wanted to talk to me."

Ryo nodded. "You're going to go in three days. Sound good? If I'm right, you're not scheduled at the club for the next few nights."

Sayaka nodded in affirmation. _Thank God. _

"Good. The robot and the geezer came in earlier, but I told them to get lost. I'll tell them you're good to go then. Take the next few days off and get rested. I want you on your A-game when you're back. I can't imagine anything with Sueda is going to go well."

Sayaka raised her eyebrows and nodded again. _Probably not. _

"I need you to gather together everything you have on the Megumi case right now. You're going to do a presentation in the boardroom in half an hour. We have the Chiefs from Mitakihara and Kazamino there. Both forces man and use that jail…so the evidence manipulation could have come from either one."

Sayaka swallowed and nodded. She was pretty sure it was going to be a gong show. She wasn't the best public speaker and she had a whopping thirty minutes to put something of a very sensitive nature together. She hated dealing with shades of grey. She liked things that were black and white, good or evil, better.

Things got complicated when there were shades of grey. She had never once hesitated to kill witches before when they were just monsters hell bent on cursing the world.

Now those witches were distressed little girls who made a big mistake in contracting with Kyubey. Now every witch was a grotesque reminder of the horrific fate of girls, just like her, or Yuma, or even Kyoko.

She started seeing the grey, and she fucked up and let someone get killed. And that someone had a life partner and sounded like an amazing person. He was really doing some good in the world. He was exactly what the world needed.

And she let him get torn in two by fucking demon monkeys.

She plugged away at her computer, barely recognizing what she was typing or putting in the presentation. She was just a machine, plugging in data and information wherever it needed to go.

She was hollow and inhuman.

Before she knew it, her thirty minutes were up. She seemed to have pieced together a presentation and saved it onto a pink USB with a panda keychain attached. It was the only USB she ever used.

It had been a gift from Madoka.

She got up to walk towards the board room when there was a commotion in the jail area. The station had one that could be used for temporarily holding people under arrest when the actual jail was full. Sayaka looked over and her eyes widened in recognition.

_Oh no, oh please no. _

The man with the thick glasses and checkered sweater vest was drunkenly slurring curse words at some officers while stumbling over his own two feet.

"You dun' know me. You dun' know my business. She fuckin' _deserved _it!" He yelled before falling flat on his face in the cell. An officer she had met a few times but never really spoke to slammed the cell door behind the man with a restrained expression on his face. They had been in different classes, but were at the police academy at the same time.

Sayaka stuttered, looking at the man she had saved less than twelve hours ago.

"I've been called to his house for domestic disputes almost every week for the past six months. The bastard beat his wife all the time." Sayaka noticed that the officer was shaking like she had so many times before, trying to hold himself together. He was talking to his partner a few feet away from her. "She never wanted to press charges. I never pushed her about it. I should have. I should have pushed her after the second call but I didn't because it was her business." His voice cracked. "She's in the hospital. They don't know if she'll wake up. I should have done something. I should have said something. I should have-"

Sayaka stood motionlessly in the middle of the pandemonium around her.

She looked behind her, to see the man she thought would have had a kind face struggling to hold himself up. His face wasn't kind at all. It was twisted; cruel and ugly.

She thought of the photo of the man she let die. He looked so happy. He really _did _have a kind face. She had only seen it terrified in person. He was so wonderful.

She wondered how she made the decision of who she would save. Was she really being strategic? The good man was further away, but conscious; she could have reached him and he might have been able to run. The bad man was closer…but she thought he might have had a kind face or worked in a library.

She had looked at them and judged who should live and who should die.

And she had judged wrong.

She was underwater, sinking, collapsing. She couldn't hear what was happening around her. She only heard her own thoughts, pulling her under. The world was starting to screech around her, like tires squealing against the brakes or fingernails on a chalkboard.

Something was shaking her. No, someone was shaking her.

"Saaaayyyyyaaaakkkkaaa" The voice seemed to say in slow motion. She couldn't recognize it. She didn't want to.

She collapsed to the floor in an inelegant heap, eyes open but unseeing.

She could suddenly hear, but couldn't bring herself to do anything.

"Sayaka?! Sayaka!" Ayumi was screaming, shaking her.

"Someone call an ambulance!"

"Is that…Captain, is that the _star _detective you were telling me so much about? The one who found this evidence of corruption?"

The voices drowned out again. She didn't need to hear them.

She didn't need to hear anything.

* * *

Everything was passing in a blur around her. Within a week, the church was approved as a non-profit and given the status of a cultural tourist attraction…or some shit like that. She had spent the last week burying premium quality drugs in a cemetery. She had paid off half of the costs of the church. She was now an owner of a business.

She had gone from being a pawn to being a somebody that everyone wanted to have as an ally.

She felt like her entire life had just been flipped upside down. Well, the normal part of her life had.

Well, the non-magical semi-normal part of her life had.

Running a business was going to be a lot more work than she thought Tomi ever did. In the week since she started running the place, she'd already had to take disciplinary action against one staff for trying to steal from the bar, work out a new contract with a supplier for the purchase of mozzarella sticks of all things, and call a plumber to fix a toilet that was broken by a drunk patron who decided to punch it.

She was also preparing to take disciplinary action against a certain staff named "Yamasaki Rin", who had missed her last two shifts without giving proper notice or finding a replacement. Her partner insisted she had a bad case of the stomach flu, and no one liked Geisha enough to do her a favour and take the shift, even if it was for 'Precious' who everybody else liked. Kyoko didn't believe Sayaka was sick with the flu for a second. She had gotten stabbed through the chest recently and lost her first human; she probably just needed a break.

_Yeah, she just needs a break is all._

She sat underneath the Sakura tree basking in the warm breeze, pocky in mouth and shovel in dirt covered hands. Aside from the not-so-legal implications of what she was doing…it felt like everything was going to work out.

So what was making her feel so uneasy?

It was odd. She had plenty of reasons to feel uneasy. She knew that. But she could tell that this twisting feeling in her gut had nothing to do with diamonds, ethics, money, or the church.

Something was wrong, and she didn't know what. It was driving her crazy.

She called Yuma, just to be safe.

No answer.

Kyoko growled, calling the school next and asking to speak to Yuma. She was on hold for a few minutes while they tried to find her; a few minutes longer than Kyoko would have liked.

"Hello?" Yuma sounded confused.

"Yuma! Took you long enough! Where were you?" Kyoko snapped. She was agitated as fuck.

"I was in class. It's a school day. What's wrong with you? I can…feel something's off with you." It sounded like Yuma was trying to word things in a way that was inconspicuous when she was in public. Kyoko sighed.

"Yeah, I feel like something's off too. I don't know what. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Are you okay?" She relented. There was no point getting upset with Yuma. It sounded like she was okay, and that brought more relief to Kyoko than she could have imagined.

"I'm fine. Are you?"

"I'll be fine when I figure out what it is that's bugging me. I'm just glad it's not you." Kyoko answered truthfully. _As long as Yuma's okay. _

"Okay…take it easy. I'll see you at dinner time."

"Dinner? You're not coming home right after school? I didn't know you had art club today."

"I don't. I haven't talked to Sayaka recently. I kept on forgetting. I just want to make sure she's okay."

"Oh. Right. Just watch yourself with her, alright?" Kyoko started to get an even worse feeling that she knew what was wrong.

"I will. See you tonight!" Yuma hung up. Kyoko pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at the screen. The photo on the home screen was one of her and Yuma making silly faces. She couldn't bring herself to smile at it, even though that usually did the trick.

"Rat bastard, are you here?" She called out. Surely enough, Kyubey emerged from the shadows of the tree she had been sitting under seconds later.

"_What can I do for you, Kyoko?" _

She glared distrustfully at the shady creature that had ruined countless lives.

"How's Sayaka?"

Kyubey's expression kept the same vacant smile. Its tail swished back and forth as it tilted its head to the side.

"_That's an interesting question. Why are you asking it?" _

"I don't need to explain myself to you. Just tell me how she's doing!" She barked, holding Kyubey up by the scruff of its neck. It blinked at her.

"_She has had an 'epidsode' of sorts. She is not a witch yet, but I suspect she will become one within the next twenty-four hours at this rate. She was taken to the Kazamino Health Sciences Centre." _

"The Kaza- they brought her to a _hospital_?! It's that bad?! Ah shit." Kyoko threw Kyubey to the side and quickly brushed the dirt off her hands and onto her jean shorts. Kyubey shook off the blow and followed her.

"_Where are you going?" _

"To stop that dumbass from turning into a witch in a fucking hospital." Hospital witches were always the worse; they got strong, fast because they had a lot of weak humans to feast on. _Sayaka wouldn't want that. _

"_I was under the impression that you would want to see her become a witch. You seem to __strongly__ dislike her and have shown her nothing but ill will since she became a magical girl. Besides, don't you need more grief seeds?" _Kyoko didn't like the way it said the word 'strongly', as if it were deliberately being ironic. She stopped to turn around and kick it.

"Fuck off! I just know that Yuma likes her and I don't want Yuma to be upset."

She ran in the direction of the Health Centre, ignoring the fact that something annoying in the back of her mind was reminding her that she had two extra grief seeds in her pocket.

* * *

Everything was passing in a blur around her, but she couldn't find the energy to care. She couldn't find the energy to respond. She couldn't find the energy to actually do anything. The weight of gravity was holding her down.

_Why…why was I chosen to do this? I can't even protect myself; how can I protect others too? _

_Why would Kyubey choose me when it's so obvious that I would just become a witch? _

It was a strange feeling. Sayaka had had it sometimes before; the feeling that you weren't supposed to be somewhere; the feeling that you weren't supposed to be _alive_.

Sayaka didn't know why, but sometimes she just felt like she was supposed to have died a very, very long time ago.

_I've escaped death too many times. It's not fair. There are so many people out there who deserve to live so much more than I do. _

_Why would the world let me live while Madoka and Kita died?_

She could vaguely recognize someone screaming near her. She had heard that voice before.

Sayaka's mother was screaming about something, but she couldn't even hear the words.

Was she screaming now? Or had she been screaming before? When did that even happen? Sayaka just noticed that the lights had gone out and it was dark outside. Wasn't it just daytime?

She thought she might have felt someone touching her. Maybe that was her mother?

_Is someone talking to me right now? _

Sayaka was feeling cold. Ice was spreading through her veins, freezing them. Her heart was about to be frozen too.

_Maybe the world wants to make the good people die, so it's just the bad ones like me left to destroy it. What a stupid world. It's like it wants to be destroyed. _

_Is that why I've lived this long? So I can curse it to oblivion too?_

She closed her eyes to let herself sleep. She didn't think she was going to wake back up again. She didn't think she would mind that.

_Maybe that's been my purpose in life all along._

Until the fog that she hadn't realized had surrounded her was suddenly lifted.

* * *

Kyoko didn't know how to process the sight in front of her. Sayaka was ghostly pale, staring up at the ceiling and barely blinking. She had an IV connected to her arm and was wearing a hospital gown that made her look even more whitewashed.

Kyoko had to enchant a few people to get in after visiting hours were over and she wasn't family. It wasn't hard to do. The staff were all so tired that it was easy to convince them that they didn't care and should just let her go through. One of them even gave her Sayaka's file.

According to this, Sayaka had been diagnosed with a retarded-stuporous variety of catatonia five days ago.

_That explains why she's missed work. _

"Oi! Snap out of it!" Kyoko flicked her forehead. There was no response. Kyoko slapped her. Nothing. Kyoko shook her. Nothing.

She sighed in aggravation.

"Really, of all times to throw some kind of pity party. A person died! That sucks! We've all lost people. The more time you spend moping around, feeling sorry for yourself, the more humans are gonna die, right? You need to pull yourself together! Come on, get up!" Kyoko shouted, pulling her up.

She let go and Sayaka collapsed in what looked like a very, very uncomfortable position. But she did nothing.

"URG!" Kyoko snarled. "Come on! You're not supposed to be like this! You're a fucking cop, and literally a fucking knight in shining armour. Act like it!"

Still nothing. She was going to have to re-evaluate her strategy. She ran out in to the hallways and looked for Sayaka's clothes behind the unmanned front desk of the psychiatric ward. Kyoko did a quick survey of her surroundings and noticed that there was a group of staff in a coffee room. _Taking a break…good timing. _

She quickly and quietly rustled through cabinets, trying to find Sayaka's clothes. She found files, office supplies, cables, and even a box of stale donuts. Kyoko stole one with crusty pink frosting before continuing her search.

She finally found it: a bag labelled "Miki, Sayaka".

She snatched it and ran back to the room. It reminded her of her street rat days.

She really didn't miss those days at all.

"Hey, hey Sayaka, check it out!" Kyoko sing-songed as she closed the door behind her. "Look what I have!" She ripped open the bag, pulling out her clothes. Sayaka's badge immediately dropped onto the floor with a resounding thud.

"Ooo, think of all the things I could do with my very own KPD badge! I'm going to taaaaaake it." She waved it in front of Sayaka's face. Still no response. Kyoko huffed and made a point of sticking it in her back pocket. "Let's see what else you got."

She pulled out her wallet. Kyoko immediately burst out laughing at Sayaka's photo on her driver's license.

"Were you _goth_ or something? Oh my god, that's hilarious! You look like an angry racoon getting a mugshot!" Sayaka didn't respond, but Kyoko didn't care. She just enjoyed the photo.

She found a wad of large bills; clearly tips from the club. Kyoko whistled in appreciation.

"I'm taking your mooooney. Are you going to stop me? If you don't, I'm assuming you're okay with it." Sayaka didn't respond. "Well thank you for your generosity." She pocketed the money.

"I bet you have all kinds of fun treasures in-" Her taunting smile immediately changed into a frown when she felt three sharp objects, like needles.

"You'd better be fucking kidding me." She said lowly, voice promising pain if she was right about what she felt.

She pulled out three unused grief seeds. Kyoko squeezed them so hard, she wouldn't have been surprised if she could have broken them.

"You _fucking _idiot! Haven't you been cleaning your soul gem?!" Kyoko pulled the ring off of Sayaka's finger and watched it transform into a very, very murky dark blue soul gem.

She really was on the brink of transforming.

Kyoko shoved the three grief seeds at it. It made a big difference, turning it from nearly opaque black to a dull blue. She growled a bit before pulling out her own grief seed, turning the gem into the bright aqua colour she liked.

Kyoko decided to ignore her last sentiment.

She looked over to the bed and noticed Sayaka's first signs of responsiveness. She was blinking rapidly.

"Where…where am I?" She murmured.

Kyoko hit her over the head hard with a Bible that had been sitting next to her bed.

"OW! Oh _shit, _why are _you_ here?!" She clutched her head, trying to scoot away from Kyoko and her new weapon.

"I'm here because you're an idiot! Why didn't you clean your soul gem? Are you trying to turn yourself into a witch?!" Kyoko shouted.

Sayaka spluttered in response.

"No, of course not! It's just…they….they're from _magical girls_. They were like us! I just can't-"

"You just can't accept it, huh? Yeah, we're not all we're cracked up to be. We're one mental breakdown away from becoming raging monsters that literally eat people; that's hard to accept, I get it. So you know what you do? You _stop _yourself from becoming one. You keep fighting. You keep getting grief seeds. You get up and you _fight_. You don't become fucking…hang on, what was it" Kyoko muttered as she opened up the file. "You don't become a retard-stuporous catatonia!"

"Cata-oh my god, how long have I been here? And why do you have my file?"

"Five days, asshole. By the way, you missed work too. Baby Kurosawa's been on my ass asking when you're coming back. They're blaming _me _for scaring you out of working there, so thanks for that!" Kyoko ignored the second question.

"Ah...uh…sorry for that. I was kind of catatonic…I guess…" Sayaka rubbed her head and looked at the ground sheepishly. That _really_ pissed Kyoko off.

"Oh, fuck you. Seriously, _fuck you_! How selfish can you be? Did you plan this? Were you hoping that if they took you to a _hospital_, you could witch out here and then-" Kyoko smacked her lips. "Yum, yum! Lots of sick, weak humans, ready to eat! You might as well have a whole damn buffet!"

"No! No! That's not…that's never what I…I just can't do this. I'm not strong enough to do this. I'm not _good _enough at anything to do this." Sayaka started off angry, but crumbled and fell forward, sobbing violently.

"Yeah, because you're an idiot! Believe me, the less you clean your soul gem, the worse _everything _gets. Everything seems like a bigger deal than it is. Everything seems darker. And I've actually gone through real dark stuff, not just losing a human I didn't know. I've lost _special _people, and I kept going. I can do it, so can you. Just stop being a fucking idiot!" Kyoko looked away, crossing her arms.

Sayaka looked up behind her, sniffling. She had her full attention on Kyoko.

Kyoko sighed.

"The first one…the first innocent person you lose to a witch is always the hardest. The first one I lost was a ten year old boy. I still have nightmares about him screaming for his mother as a motorcycle thing ripped him to shreds. I was twelve when it happened."

Sayaka looked at her empathetically. Kyoko hated it.

"Yuma's first one was your friend, Madoka. She still dreams about her. Hell, she even drew a portrait of her a few years ago. We have it somewhere, I think."

Sayaka looked shocked. Kyoko preferred that.

"I remembered you, after Yuma and I talked about it. You were crying out her name, right? That was how we knew the girl's name was Madoka. If we'd been more careful, and didn't assume we'd already beat them, we could have stopped her from getting killed."

Sayaka laughed humourlessly.

"No; it was completely my fault. Madoka was in a safe part of the labyrinth. My friend and I found her there after getting away from the monsters…I guess they were familiars. But we found her, and Madoka said she was going to go up to check on our friend Homura, who went up to fight. I guess Homura was a magical girl too, huh? I didn't really think about it. I had stopped her…Madoka, at first. I told her she was too weak, and there was nothing she could do." Sayaka laughed again, this time starting to cry. "I said I would go in as backup because I'd picked up some piece of the labyrinth and was using it as a bat. Because _that _would be enough to beat a witch. I could have stopped her, but I didn't because I assumed I was good enough to protect her. So no, it wasn't your fault at all. It was completely mine. Feel free to tell Yuma that."

Kyoko watched Sayaka as she flopped backwards on the bed, silently shivering as she cried.

"So I was right. The Mitakihara School thing _did _fuck you up."

"Well obviously it fucked me up! It fucked up everybody I know who was there! One of my friends is still an addict. The other can't even leave her damn apartment without breaking down. And then there's me…who didn't think there would be any catches at all to a mutated ferret thing offering to turn me into a magical girl in the middle of demented cuckoo clock Legoland."

Kyoko let out a bark of laughter. Sayaka glared at her, but it didn't seem to have as much emotion behind it as her glares for Kyoko usually did. Kyoko shut her mouth.

"Okay, okay, it's not funny. It was just the way you described it."

Sayaka looked at her before letting out a weak chuckle. "I've been told that I have a way with words."

Kyoko returned Sayaka's weak smile.

"It's so easy to think about the people you couldn't save. Just…just try to think about the ones you _do_, you know? Think about the people you helped escape from the labyrinths. Think about the people who never have to get trapped in them at all because you killed the witch before they could get them. You've already killed a few witches who could have screwed people up as much as you."

Sayaka smiled again before frowning. She pulled her knees into her chest.

"There were two men in the last labyrinth. One was conscious and had tattoos and crazy hair. He looked like a party animal, you know? The other was an unconscious man in a sweater vest and looked like he was a librarian or something. I saved the librarian and let the party animal die. The partner of the party animal came into the station to file a missing person's report. He told me about him. His name was Kita Haru. He ran a youth centre and volunteered at a halfway house. I saw the librarian get taken into the station. He was an alcoholic who beat his wife up so badly, she had to be taken to the hospital and might never wake up.

"I just keep on thinking: why do I get to decide who lives and who dies? I'm not a God and I'm barely a human. I saved the wrong one."

Sayaka buried her head into her knees and cried softly. Kyoko looked away awkwardly. She wasn't really sure what was appropriate here.

"It makes it a lot worse, knowing the names of the people you've lost. It makes them more _real_, you know? I'm glad I never learned that little boy's name. I think it haunts Yuma, knowing Madoka's name."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make things harder for you. I wasn't even thinking when I was screaming for-" Her words were muffled by her legs.

"Oh for fuck's sakes, don't blame yourself for that. That's the last thing you should blame yourself for right." Kyoko chided gently and rolled her eyes. "Blame yourself for being a dummy who didn't clean her soul gem. Blame yourself for selling your soul to a deformed ferret in a cuckoo clock or wherever. Blame yourself for things that are _actually _your fault. I used to like blaming everything on myself…it made the world seem fairer, you know? And it's nice to think that the world is a good place, because then there's hope that everything will work out for you if you play by the rules. But it's not. Accept that. You didn't mess up the world; it was already messed up. You're just another tiny gear in the machine, or whatever." Kyoko finished with an awkward waving hand gesture.

Sayaka peered up at her with big tear-stained eyes. Kyoko sighed in frustration.

"Come here." She groaned, giving Sayaka a tight, rough hug. Sayaka wouldn't have been able to return it, even if she wanted to. Kyoko liked that; she didn't want to think about how she would have felt if Sayaka hadn't hugged her back.

There were some sounds coming from the hall. It sounded like hospital staff that were energetic and in a good mood.

"Fuck, it's probably the next shift. I need to go. Stop being stupid." She pointed a scolding finger at Sayaka before peeking outside and sneaking out. Kyoko would have preferred to use a window, but the one in there was way too small to fit out of. It was the psyche ward after all; they were probably afraid of suicidal patients jumping.

She enchanted the elevator to make it bypass the staff identification requirement. She hid behind a plant so no one could see her quite as easily. Just as the elevator beeped and the doors open, there was a frustrated scream down the hall.

"KYOKO, GIVE ME BACK MY FUCKING MONEY AND MY DAMN BADGE!"

Kyoko had to hold her hand in front of her mouth to stifle her laughter. She threw the badge on the ground of the hallway just as the elevator doors were closing.

She kept the money though.

* * *

Sayaka didn't know how to process the sight in front of her. She'd been on anti-depressants before. She'd been on anxiety medications before. She'd been on a whole bunch of shit she should have never been on before.

But even to her, this looked like a _lot _of pills.

"Listen, I'm not so sure this is a good idea…" She said uncomfortably to the Force psychiatrist in front of her. He was a middle-aged, studious-looking man with a broad frame. Sayaka imagined that he would have been very attractive in his youth, but now with a receding hairline and protruding stomach would have better luck with his wife than young women at a bar. "Just based on my history, you know?"

"No, no! You don't need to worry about that at all. Based on my evaluation, I think you are at full mental capacity and can go back to work immediately."

"I just got out of the hospital last night…"

"Yes, you had five unplanned days off. From what I see here, three of them were scheduled days off, so you only missed two days of work. I think we can declare those simple sick days and there is no concern. You're fit for duty."

She looked at the shrink incredulously. She didn't mind going back on the field, but this seemed ridiculous, even to her.

"Ryo bribed you, didn't he?"

The psychiatrist looked baffled.

"Of course not! How could you suggest something like that? I understand that you were in the process of investigating a potential act of corruption before you took some leave, so it is natural to be concerned." He turned off the tape recorder. "Are you trying to get yourself kicked off the Force? Come on, work with me here." He turned it back on. "Do you disagree with my diagnosis? Would you rather have disability leave? I would only feel it right, professionally, to give you an additional three days leave."

Sayaka raised an eyebrow at him with crossed arms and legs. She looked down and sighed.

"No sir, your diagnosis seems very fair. Thank you for your time."

She bowed and got up, taking the paper bag full of pills with her. She planned on throwing them out later.

Kyoko was right. She felt way better with a clear soul gem. She would have to go hunt a witch.

It still seemed so…cannibalistic.

She sighed and let it go. It was the new reality of her world. Just because she had to live it, didn't mean she had to like it.

"Detective Miki. Are you ready?" A familiar monotonous voice called from behind her. Sayaka whipped around, coming face to face with Akemi. She tried not to laugh at the thought of Akemi in a magical girl outfit.

"You know it!" Sayaka grinned insincerely and gave an obnoxious thumbs up. "Ready for what?"

Akemi raised an eyebrow. "To speak to Sueda Marilyn. We were supposed to go a few days ago, but I heard you had a bad case of the stomach flu. Are you feeling better now?"

"Oh, aha, yeah! That flu was a bad one…" She chuckled lamely as she rubbed the back of her head. "Let's go!" She said with way too much enthusiasm. Akemi looked hesitant, but nodded and followed.

_Fuck, I didn't know we were going to go right now. _

It was an awkwardly silent car ride out to the prison. At least it was awkward to her; Akemi and her boss might have enjoyed the silence so they could listen to the dreadfully boring radio talk show.

The prison was on the outskirts of town and took in the worst female offenders from around Japan. Sayaka had never actually been inside before. It looked like a massive, ugly, foreboding place surrounded by twenty foot tall electric fences. An imposing male guard at the front opened the gate to let them in.

The parking lot was lined with beautiful petunias and marigolds that did not fit with the ugly white rectangular building or dangerous fences surrounding the perimeter. The visitors' area was very bright welcoming, similarly not matching the place it was in.

Sayaka was led into a staff area that needed a key card to enter.

The atmosphere of the building became much more fitting.

The grey speckled floors shone, recently cleaned, and were well lit by fluorescent lights. There was absolutely no colour in the hallways except for Sayaka's hair and the golden crests that adorned the guards' chests. Their uniforms were grey and black.

The hallway was narrow, with rooms that could pass for interrogation rooms on each side.

"These are multi-purpose rooms. They can be used for psychiatric appointments, meetings with lawyers, supervised meetings with families, and sometimes even temporary isolation rooms." Akemi recited as if she was stating an interesting fact on a tour. Sayaka nodded awkwardly.

"Are you ready? Do you know what you're going to say?" Akemi prodded. Sayaka nodded.

"I'm here to ask you some questions regarding the murder of Miyamoto Tsubasa. I understand that he was your physician. And then we'll see where things go from there." Sayaka felt guilty. They were definitely wasting time, because he was obviously killed by a witch. That being said, this could get them some good information, so why not try.

Akemi nodded in response, before looking forward. They continued down the narrow hallway.

"Did you read the autopsy results?" She asked.

Sayaka shook her head. She assumed it was pretty obvious that he died because he was decapitated.

"He had stage four terminal brain cancer. He didn't have much time left anyways."

Sayaka blinked in surprise. "I didn't know that. Wow." They kept walking in silence after that.

"In here. Good luck. She's a rough one." The guard that was escorting them showed them to the room at the end of the hallway.

Miyamoto Suki was sitting inside in a bright orange jumpsuit, hands clasped in front of her on the steel table. Her posture was rigid and straight, just as it had been in her first interview recording. Sayaka had never realized just how much makeup she must have been wearing before. Her skin looked pale and she had massive bags under her eyes, enunciating her sharp features and making them look more sunken. Her hair, which used to be a chique styled bob now looked overgrown and dull.

If she felt like she looked ugly, she certainly didn't show it.

There was nothing on the table. The room just had to chairs, the table, and Suki. It looked painfully bare.

Sayaka gulped nervously and went in with her notebook, recorder, and pen in hand.

And a file with a photo of the head of Miyamoto Tsubasa; the last piece of him there was.

"Sueda Marilyn." Sayaka greeted with a nod as she entered the room.

"Sapphire." She responded with a mocking smile. Sayaka paused as she closed the door, but otherwise did not show that it fazed her at all.

Sayaka set up the equipment on the table.

"The current date is May 28, time 10:15 am. This is Detective Miki interviewing Sueda Marilyn at the New Mitakihara-Kazamino Women's Correctional Institute. Please state your name ma'am."

"Sueda Marilyn. You got it right." She smiled, sickeningly and insincerely sweet. "Thank you for coming to meet with me. I'm surprised you came. I have no information I can give you beyond what I already have though." She opened her arms and shrugged, making it very evident that she _did _know more than she had told them.

"Detective Miki, huh? Look at you. You've come so far for yourself!" She tauntingly congratulated her. "What a success story. Your family must be _so _proud."

"They are." She was curt. No need to fuel the fire. "Sueda-san, I am here to ask you some questions regarding-"

"Oh, hush hush. I didn't want you here to ask _me _questions. I wanted to ask _you _questions. I've already been sentenced for life with no chance of parole, so be nice and give me a bone, hmm? Tell me your story. When did you break out of it? It looked like you were on death's door when you had fallen off our radar for two years. Tell me about your _brave _tale of redemption. Have you seriously never slipped up since then? Taken a hit? Just one hit? Nothing at all?"

Sayaka clenched her fists and her jaw, but stayed composed. "I am here to ask you some questions –"

"But I _told _you, I've answered all of the questions already! You silly people just don't listen. I want to hear _all _about you. Out of all of my girls, you officially became my favourite after you literally laid down in my mother's brains for _five minutes_ and didn't say anything. I mean, wow. If you can handle lying down in _that_, I bet there's all kinds of ridiculously sick things we'll be able to make you do."

"Uh, wait, what?" Sayaka was confused.

"You know. When you relapse. They'll get you then." Suki smiled predatorily at her. "Oh, we'll get _such _a high price for you. You know, you've pissed off some pretty powerful, pretty _rich _people who I bet would pay a pretty penny to get a piece of you. I won't be there to see it, but" She shrugged smugly and shot her a lustful expression, licking her lips "I'll have a _lot _of fun imagining it. Not that I ever had anything to do with things like _trafficking_, of course. I only murdered my mother." She shrugged as she finished, as if killing her mother was a similar offense to stealing a cookie from the cookie jar.

"Oh you _fucking_-"

"Detective Miki, please come outside for a moment." Sayaka heard Ryo's voice over the intercom in the room. Sayaka exhaled deeply, keeping her head down and avoided looking at Suki. Suki had a shit-eating grin on her face that reminded her way too much of Kyoko. Sayaka left the room and shut the door. She leaned back against it.

"I didn't know you were coming, Captain." She said, looking over at him without turning her head in his direction. He nodded.

"Yeah. Got here a bit later than you. Have to say…that wasn't your best in there at the end."

Sayaka sighed, lowering her head. "I know."

"She's trying to get to you. Just keep yourself together, alright? You were doing great. The more you hold up, the more she lets slip. This is the first time anyone got her to say _anything _about trafficking. Just stand your ground, and we can get more out of her, okay? Be professional." His words were reassuring. She nodded.

"You attract more flies with honey. Try to be more genial with her." Akemi suggested as well. Sayaka took a deep breath and nodded. She had actually never interrogated anybody before; it was a lot harder than it looked.

"I can do this. Thanks." She went back in. Suki was lounging back in her chair with crossed legs. She would have looked more fitting sitting on a throne than the foldout steel chair.

"I'm sorry Detective. Did my words bother you? I apologize, I can be _very _crude sometimes."

Sayaka smiled pleasantly at her, taking Akemi's advice. "It's quite alright Sueda-san. It's nice to know this place hasn't taken away your sense of humour."

Sayaka's breath caught in her throat. _Oh shit. That was way too much like-_

"Wait…_Precious?_" Suki's jaw dropped as she leaned forward to inspect her more closely. "Oh my god…_Oh my god!_"

Sayaka's heart skipped a beat. She looked like a deer in the headlights. She wasn't sure what to expect. She was about to run when-

"Oh my god, _Precious!_" Suki burst out laughing. "I was excited to _finally _meet Sapphire when she was sober, but I already had! You're _Precious_! Oh my god. Well done! Well done!" She applauded slowly, continuing to laugh for a minute that felt like an eternity. She had tears gathering in the corner of her eyes from laughing so hard.

"Hey, do you guys know who she is?" Suki yelled to the mirror at the back of the room. It was so obvious that it was a screen with people looking in. Everyone had seen the cop shows. "She's Precious! One of the best strippers in Kazamino! She puts on one _hell _of a show! Oh man, wait. Do you know what _kind _of shows she puts on? Oh, they're something, I can tell you that. I wonder if they're even legal!"

"Sueda-san." Sayaka cut her off. She would have been much more intimidating if her face wasn't as red as a tomato. "I have come to ask you some questions regarding the-"

"No, no, no, no, no, no!" She was still grinning. "I have _way _more questions I want to ask you now. Tell me: what was it like fucking _Kyoko_? To be honest, I usually prefer men but _her_; I'd make an exception for any day." Suki licked her lips. She seemed less predatory when she spoke about Kyoko. "You're one lucky bitch."

"Sueda-san. If you wouldn't mind. How about I ask you one question, and then you can ask me one?" Sayaka tried to bargain with her. As long as she could get her to just _shut up _and listen to one question…the game would completely change.

Suki settled down, leaning an arm casually on the table. "Fine, fine. Go ahead. _One _question."

_Just one, huh? _

Sayaka glanced at the folder on the table. This wasn't going to be a sensitive way of telling her…but she figured Suki clearly wasn't the sensitive type.

"Could you identify this man for us?" Sayaka asked calmly, pulling the photographs of Miyamoto Tsubasa's head out of the file. It was manipulative, pretending a witch's kill was a murder, but it might get them some more arrests. That had never been Sayaka's intention in bringing the head out though. She just didn't think anyone should disappear without a trace in there. No one deserved that.

Suki's smug expression quickly dissolved.

"Where…where's the rest of him?" She asked quietly.

Sayaka looked down. She wished she had a nicer way of saying this.

"That's all we've been able to find so far."

Suki's breath hitched.

"Could I have a moment alone please?" She muttered quietly. Sayaka furrowed her brows but nodded, picking up her tape recorder and left the room.

As soon as the door closed behind her, all hell broke loose.

Suki screamed, throwing the table in the air. She picked up her chair and smashed it against the table, creating a very noticeable dent in it. She threw the chair across the room and kicked the poor, abused table. This went on for five long, agonizing minutes.

She was panting heavily by the end of it. It was astonishing to Sayaka how chaotic Suki could make the room look, even though there were really only two pieces of furniture in there. Everyone outside the room was still and silent. No one looked at her or each other.

Suki hobbled over to the window, eyes fixed on the ground and shaggy hair covering her face. She knocked lightly on the mirror.

Everyone outside looked at Sayaka. She was uncomfortable, asking them silently what she was supposed to do. Akemi stepped back and guided her over to the intercom. Akemi pushed the button to turn it on.

"Yes, Sueda-san?" Sayaka asked uncertainly. She looked over at Akemi and Ryo for approval. Neither made any movement.

"Don't call me that. My name is Miyamoto Suki. I want my lawyer and I want to make a deal. I'll talk."

* * *

Kyoko opened the door of the club in exasperation. She thought she had spent way too much time there before, but now it felt like she spent most of everyday between the club and the church. Hell, she'd fallen asleep on some of the questionable couches a few times instead of making her way back to the apartment. Between arranging business deals, making the club moderately functional, and hunting witches she had no time to herself anymore.

She almost forgot to give Yuma her tablet back. At least it had the desired effect and smoothing over some of the rougher parts in their relationship.

Kyoko smiled to herself; it would have been alright anyways. She and Yuma were a team, and they always would be. They could work anything out because they both genuinely _wanted _to stay together, and not just for the sake of strategy. They were family.

She wasn't sure if anyone else would have ever said that about her. Mami might have.

Her Dad sure as hell didn't want them to stay together.

She wondered what Sayaka thought of her.

Kyoko didn't even know what _she_ thought of Sayaka.

Kyoko shook her head, trying to physically shake the thought away. She couldn't understand how Sayaka could always creep into her head, even when she had way more important things to think about.

Like right now; why the hell was baby Kurosawa waiting outside her office door when the club wasn't even open yet?

"Hello Sakura-san." He smiled and bowed politely to her.

"Hey. Just call me Kyoko. Can I ask what you're doing here?"

"I suppose this is a bit odd, isn't it? Tomi let me in. I was hoping we could…talk."

Kyoko fixed a glare on him, which she supposed looked very intimidating based on how he looked away from her. She was rightfully suspicious.

"That depends on what it's about, Kurosawa."

"Hey. Just call me Fusao." He said with an uneasy smile. "I have a proposition for you that I think you might like."

Kyoko's expression didn't soften, but she unlocked her office and left the door open for him. He followed her and closed it behind him.

The office still looked ridiculously unfurnished. After the church was paid for, she planned on actually getting some damn filing cabinets. She suspected that part of the reason the club was as much of a mess as it was was that Tomi didn't keep any fucking files about the club operations in here.

"Tomi told me about the diamonds."

"I thought his job was to keep secrets." Kyoko sneered. _Fucking asshole! _

"No, his job for you now is to be your advisor. He wants to see you do well. He's my advisor too."

"Not your father's?" Kyoko asked, falsely casually with a raised eyebrow.

"No. Not since he started trying to take over everything. My father made Tomi his bitch too, not just you. Family doesn't matter in this industry. Respect does though, and he's forgotten that. I haven't, and I won't."

Kyoko relaxed her posture a bit, looking at him inquisitively.

"We wrote the diamonds off a long time ago. I respect that you found them and agree that you have the right to keep them. If you were anybody else…maybe not. But I respect your skills. I want to form a partnership with you, Kyoko."

"What kind of partnership?"

"You have white diamonds, some of the best methamphetamine to ever be produced from Japan but they're a fixed amount. I have regular methamphetamine, but we're still producing. Let's combine them."

Kyoko looked at him skeptically.

"Look, you could sell a gram of straight diamonds, right? _Or_, you sell two thirds of a gram of diamonds, one third of a gram of regular street meth that's the same colour. _No one _would be able to tell the difference. You get the same price but keep your supply going for longer."

Kyoko leaned back in her chair.

It was a good idea.

"What do you want from this?"

"I'm putting in a third of the product. I want a third of the cut. The diamonds are going to go for four times as much as regular street meth, so it's worth it for me. I can also help you with better distribution. Tomi told me how much you sold your first set to Watanabe for, and _fuck _you got ripped off. It was actually painful to hear how little you sold that for. You could have gone for more than double that if you went through my channels. I'll get you in there. You just keep them hidden like you're doing and let them out a bit at a time."

The corner of Kyoko's mouth turned down in displeasure. She could recognize that she'd made a big mistake letting the first set go for way too low. She looked dumb and was vulnerable now. _But I need these people…_

"Tell me what's going to happen with your old man."

"I'll take care of that. Don't worry. There are more than a few people who think it's…time for him to retire." He finished cryptically.

Kyoko didn't care to know what that meant. Doing the math, between Fusao and Tomi, she was still keeping more than half and she was going to get a lot more for it than if she were on her own.

Besides…this was to make sure the church could be saved. That was it.

Right?

"Fine. You've got yourself a deal."

* * *

Sayaka opened the door to the café in exasperation. Yuma had tried to get a hold of her yesterday but things were a gong show at the hospital. She and Yuma were going to catch up a bit over some cakes and go out hunting for a witch.

Sayaka wondered if it was a bad idea to eat and then hunt, like how you shouldn't swim for thirty minutes after eating, but decided to think nothing of it. _I have magic, I can make a stitch go away. _

She saw Yuma sitting in the corner and waved with a big, apologetic smile on her face. The poor girl had probably been waiting there for twenty minutes. Yuma shot her a friendly smile back.

"I am _so_ sorry for being late. Things were crazy at work."

Yuma smiled understandingly. "It's okay, I get it. You let me know, that's what counts. Let's eat!"

They happily enjoyed their cakes. They chatted about school and tv shows they liked to watch. It was pretty light-hearted. It was pretty insincere.

When the table next to them was cleared of its patrons, they got more serious.

"I wanted to say sorry about what Kyoko did…she's really, really territorial about some things." Yuma looked down, awkwardly. "I swear, she's usually a really nice…a pretty nice person."

Sayaka laughed.

"I've done a lot to piss her off. I was in a really, really bad place the last few days. It was actually Kyoko who came by and cheered me up. I don't know." Sayaka shrugged and took a sip of her smoothie. "I think we might be able to be friends. Or at least civil with each other. I really appreciate what she did for me yesterday. I think she actually gave me one of her grief seeds."

Yuma looked at her incredulously.

"Really? Wow…that's…not normal for her. I guess she really wanted to make things right. I was pretty mad at her about this." Yuma grinned sheepishly. "At least she knows who's boss!"

They both laughed.

"She actually is a great person. I owe her my life. When she decides she cares about you…she really cares about you. I think the three of us could work really well together. I hope you guys can work through everything. You actually make me able to fight instead of just being back up." Yuma smiled softly. Sayaka smiled brightly.

"I don't think we'll ever completely agree on everything, but yeah. I think it would be great if we could all work together!" Sayaka nodded enthusiastically. Yuma returned it.

"There's actually another reason I wanted to talk to you, Sayaka." Her smile faded a bit. Sayaka was worried.

"Sure, anything. What is it?" Sayaka tried to sound as supportive as possible, which did not work out quite as well as it could have if she had not taken too large a bit of cake right before.

"It's about Kyoko. A lot of things are about Kyoko." Yuma chuckled a bit to herself. "I'm sure she hasn't told you this, but she's been having these weird things we're calling magic attacks. Neither of knows what it is. Even Kyubey's not sure. But sometimes, out of nowhere…her magic just gets depleted."

"Huh?" Sayaka asked, her mouth full of food.

"I know. It makes no sense. She's nearly turned into a witch a few times without actually using any magic. The first time, she was cooking dinner. Just a few days ago, she was going to bed when it hit. I don't know what's going on, but it's scary. I've had to wrestle her soul gem away a few times to be able to get grief seeds to it on time. I mean…she's almost died so many times and we can't figure out what's wrong with her and she's being so freaking stubborn about me going to New York in a few days." Yuma was starting to shake a bit.

Sayaka had no idea anything like that could happen. Was it possible to have a sick soul gem? There were so many things Kyubey didn't tell them, she could believe it.

_This is happening to her, and she still gave me one of her grief seeds…_

"I'll help her when you're gone. I'll keep an eye on her, don't worry. I'll always have some grief seeds on hand for her too. I promise. She's right, you should go. Sayaka-chan will be here to bug her and keep her safe!" Sayaka smiled and saluted her enthusiastically. Yuma laughed.

"Lucky Kyoko." She said, borderline sarcastically.

"Damn…dang right lucky Kyoko!" She remembered the age of her companion. "Anyways, we're going to need grief seeds to keep her safe, right? Let's go save some witches from themselves!"

* * *

Kyoko had to do this as secretly as possible. If anyone, especially a junkie in the area saw her doing this…her entire ticket to saving the church would be gone.

She had an idea on how to get the diamonds out, but it was risky and used a lot of magic. She hoped she could figure out a better idea later.

She had buried all of the diamonds in the cemetery gardens, three full garbage bags per hole. There were almost thirty holes in all. Tomi, Fusao and she agreed that they should release one garbage bag a week to keep supply low and the prices up.

She put up a barrier around the entire graveyard every time she went out to dig for it. Everyone would just see a regular graveyard, and wouldn't hear anything. She could dig out the bags, which she buried four feet underground. Her arms were still sore from that, which was saying a lot since she had magic and all that.

She bought a shit ton of potted plants from a nearby nursery to put in the hole after she dug them up. At least that way, it just looked like she was a really, really avid gardener or landscaping enthusiast.

It wasn't the best plan…but it was something.

She couldn't very well hide drugs in a witch's barrier.

She sighed. She signed herself up for way more work than she had meant to.

_You gotta do what you gotta do. _

* * *

Sayaka had to do this as secretly as possible. Miyamoto's trial had gotten a _lot _of press coverage. Everyone had been fascinated by this human trafficker that preyed on addicts and no one seemed to know about.

It wasn't completely clear how the press had found out about the human trafficking part, since she had only been brought in on murder charges.

But the point was that it got out. There had been protests on the street. Internet commenters were crying out for the death penalty. Even the support group she was in wanted to stage a protest or make some kind of petition to get her the longest sentence possible. Miyamoto ended up getting that anyways.

If anyone found out she could be acquitted, there would be riots.

Today, Sayaka had to take Miyamoto to the courts to reopen her case. This normally would have taken months, but they made an exception. The faster they could get evidence on the Kurosawas and Watanabe, the more likely it would be they could get an arrest.

There was no problem getting her out of the prison. They were going to take her to the back door of the courts.

And that's where everything went to hell.

"What the fuck is going on out there?!" Ayumi shouted, right next to Suki's ear. She cringed. She looked a lot better today. She had been allowed to put on makeup and was wearing a neutral suit that was much more flattering on her than the bright orange jumpsuit was. Miyamoto had been a talkative smartass yesterday, but she hadn't said a word since she agreed to talk.

There were protestors surrounding the court building on all sides.

Signs reading "Justice for our Stolen Sisters!", "Addicts are Humans too!", "No Freedom for Miyamoto!" were everywhere.

"How the fuck did they find out?! This was kept strictly between the judge and our police departments!" Ayumi shouted again to no one in particular. The detectives from Mitakihara looked just as nervous.

"This isn't going to be easy." One of them muttered.

They were in a simple black car that could have had anyone inside. But they were going to have to get Suki in.

A group of officers tried clearing a path for the car. They tried pulling in. The protestors immediately closed in on them.

"You're a murderer! You're worse than a murderer!" Someone shouted as they tried to beat the car with a sign.

"This is why we should have the death penalty!"

"You people are cops! _Cops_! You're supposed to defend the innocent, not the guilty!"

"There's not justice in the justice system!"

They finally got close enough to the steps going in that they took their chances and opened the car doors. If they drove any closer, they would literally be driving up the stairs.

The officers had riot shields and were struggling to hold the crowd back. Sayaka and the other detectives formed a tight circle around Miyamoto and they made a break for it.

The flashing cameras and angry shouts from all directions were disorienting. There were going to be some very unflattering pictures of Sayaka strewn across the front page of numerous newspapers tomorrow, she could guarantee it.

"Miyamoto! Why are you seeking to be acquitted? What makes you think you can be?"

"Miyamoto! Where do you think the allegations that you're a human trafficker have come from?"

"Miyamoto! What will you do if you are released from prison?"

Reporters and protestors threatened to trample them. People were pulling at the detectives, trying to get them away from Miyamoto so they could see her more carefully. Even Sayaka stumbled forward at the force. She caught her magic threatening to emerge to launch people away with her shield. It was pure pandemonium.

"Miyamoto!" A desperate woman's voice called out. Sayaka recognized her.

"Karana-san?" Sayaka asked far too quietly for anyone to hear. She was a few feet in front of Miyamoto, trying to get her to the building. Karana was behind them.

"You took my daughter. You stole my daughter!" Karana screamed, but it was drowned out by the angry cries around her. She used her small stature to sneak through a gap between two officers' riot shields to be in clear view of Miyamoto.

Karana raised her gun and fired.

By the time Sayaka saw it, it was too late.

"NO!" She rushed back and tried to pull Miyamoto out of the way.

Miyamoto's head exploded.

Everyone around her was covered in blood and brain. The screams turned from anger to terror.

Miyamoto collapsed to the ground, her head as broken as her mother's had been.

* * *

Kyoko rushed to get the club ready. It was amazing how much preparation every night actually took. She used to think Sango was an idiot, but now she truly appreciated all of the work she actually did.

"How are we on ice? Do we have enough ice now?" They had run out before.

"Got that." Sango responded.

"Did we get those fucking mozzarella sticks in?" Kyoko asked with exasperation.

"Not yet. The supplier still can't find the shipment.'

"You have got to be fucking kidding me. OI! No mozzarella sticks tonight!" She yelled to the change room. Everyone nodded, getting the message.

"Is everyone here?" Kyoko asked.

"Uh…not quite." Sango looked away.

"What? Who the fuck isn't here? Next shift starts in five minutes!" _Everyone should have been here twenty minutes ago! _

"Yamasaki's not here yet."

"Is she sick?! No one called in for her!" Kyoko threw her arms into the air. The clients in room B were going to be such a royal pain in the ass…again!

She had a whole new level of empathy for Tomi.

_God dammit Sayaka, get your shit together!_

Kyoko stopped. _Holy fuck, I'm an idiot. _

Sayaka is a fucking undercover _cop_. In _her _club. Where _she's _working drug deals now.

No. No, this was good at all.

"I think Yamasaki has been going through a rough time recently. She gets along very well with everyone else, and some of our most…profitable but high maintenance clients. Maybe we should give her a break on this." Sango tried to suggest.

Kyoko smirked.

_No, I'm not going to go easy on her at all. _

* * *

Sayaka rushed to the club to get ready.

The whole day had been a disaster.

After the gunshot, Miyamoto was fucking _dead_. Their key to bust the Kurosawas was _dead_.

The protestors ran away in fright, naturally. Twenty people got trampled and had to be taken to the hospital. Three of them were in critical condition.

It took everyone on site to manage damage control, and it barely did shit all.

She felt like a total tool running out early to get to the club…but she _had _to have a shower to wash off the blood and was late as it was. She had already missed two days of work.

She got in twenty minutes late, and still had to do her makeup. She rushed through it and threw some gawdy black and yellow bumblebee outfit on that clashed terribly with her wig. At least it was something.

She didn't even bother checking the schedule. She assumed she was booked for room B.

She got in forty minutes late.

Whatever was happening in the room, she interrupted it by nearly tripping over her feet trying to get in.

"Hello!" She sounded way too loud and excited. Everyone turned around. She winced, realizing she should have tried to come in more discretely.

"Precious! You're back!" James smiled brightly. She returned the smile.

"Hey!" Fusao smiled brightly and opened his arms. She basically collapsed into them, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"I missed you, Fusao-san". She cuddled into him. People in the room, aside from Geisha and Kurosawa cooed at the ridiculously childish display of affection.

"I missed you too, Bumblebee." He whispered into her ear. He ran his hands down her back and up her dress a bit. She ignored her urge to scoot away from him.

She shouldn't have.

"Forty. Minutes. Late. After missing two shifts in a row." Kyoko stood at the door, wearing a fitted suit that flattered her lean body nicely.

It confused the hell out of Sayaka though.

"Koko! You look…very well dressed tonight. I missed you too!" She tried to shoot her a cute, babyish smile.

Kyoko looked angry and thoroughly unimpressed.

"In my office. Now. Geisha too."

"What office?" She was really confused.

"If you'd been here the last two shifts or given your sick notice _yourself _and _on time_, you would have known. Now _come on_."

_What the fuck is going on? _

She glanced over to Akemi uneasily, but got up and followed.

Kyoko walked in to Tomi's office.

"Close the door behind you." She ordered harshly.

"Isn't this Tomi's-"

"Like I said. If you had called or come in, you'd have known we have a new change in management. I bought the club from Tomi. I'm the new owner and new manager." Kyoko crossed her arms. Sango glanced between the two of them uneasily.

"Uh, I'm really sorry, I was sick…"

"If you're sick, you find a replacement or give us enough notice so we can. You didn't do that. We were short-staffed two nights in a row. And now, you're almost a whole _hour _late."

"I'm…I'm really sorry Kyoko. I'll pay the penalties."

"Right now? You could give me money for the penalties right now?"

"Yeah! Of course it's in my-"

_Wallet. The wallet Kyoko robbed clean two days ago, and I haven't worked since then. _

"I can make it back within the night."

"You're right. You probably could. You know, there are a lot of great staff here who would _kill _to be in your position. And they probably respect the rules a lot more than you do too. We're a strip club, not a brothel, and I saw the way you let that client's hand go up your skirt. I can't even imagine what else you've done for tips."

Sayaka spluttered over her words. She had nothing to say.

"And Geisha, none of the staff like you. Since I took over _less than a week ago_, I've had almost twenty staff complaints about you getting extra shifts. The only reason you got them was because of Precious's popularity, but Precious has been slacking and others have noticed.

"Kyoko, what are you-" Sayaka began trying to put a coherent sentence together.

"You're both fired."

* * *

**AN: **After a long wait, we finally have another chapter! So much for my month and a half goal; things have been crazy with school and work in particular, so I definitely put this on the back burner. I felt so much better after writing though, so I'm going to try to make a bigger effort to update faster next time. The worst part about this time is that I actually finished this chapter a long time ago and just didn't update it.

And at long last, both Miyamotos are dead. They were supposed to have died many, many chapters ago. I find it absolutely hilarious and wonderful how many people have told me that they actually _liked _the human traffickers and felt bad for them!

This surprisingly ended up being a shorter chapter (47 pages instead of 60+), and yet I feel like more has happened. I hope my pacing was still alright. I didn't want to write too long of a perspective on Sayaka's catatonic episode, both because I think it would have gotten boring and I know absolutely nothing about what it's like to be catatonic. I had trouble finding any good research on the perspective of the catatonic persons too.

I have decided to split this story in to two parts. It makes more sense, because there's going to be a significant time skip anyways. So next chapter is going to be the last chapter of Chewing on Diamonds! Ahhh! But I don't think the next installment of the story is going to be nearly as long. I'm super excited to write it though, because it's going to be a way more fun aspect of KyoSaya.

Constructive criticism and reviews are always greatly appreciated! They motivate me to write faster!


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